Deus Ex: Crisis Core
by Napitzlol
Summary: After a grueling battle with Shinra, Zack is left for dead but is plucked from death's door by Reno and Rude. Tseng knows only one person that can help. Zack/Cissnei. A/U
1. Chapter 1

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

The rain drops felt like tiny knives falling on me, laughing at my defeat. I could barely think straight because of all the pain I was in. I couldn't believe I was still alive after being shot at by an entire army of soldiers. _At this point in my life, Mako enhancement seems like a final punishment for failing the company; if you die, you will die a slow and painful death._ This is not the place or the way I imagined myself dying; I never actually thought about death, but I definitely didn't think I would just bleed to death behind a large rock. _I'm sorry, Aeris. _I never got to say goodbye, but I'm sure she will understand. As I closed my eyes and my mind began to wander, I heard helicopter blades approaching rapidly. It didn't matter to me, however, I was already dead and there was nothing they could do to me. A few seconds later, the helicopter landed and I heard running footsteps accompanied by Reno's voice.

"Cissnei, we found the target." He said into an earpiece as they came up to me and picked me up.

"You're… *cough* wasting your time…" I managed to grunt out; I had no idea what the Turks wanted with me. They usually didn't mix with SOLDIER unless they were being paid to. I slowly slipped out of consciousness as I thought about the possibilities.

***** **Omniscient Observer POV *******

"Rude, status." The radio inside the helicopter squawked as Rude sat down in one of the pilot seats while Reno was getting Zack secured for the flight.

"Target is presumed dead. Catastrophic injuries to all extremities below the neck, several moderate to severe head injuries. Obscene loss of blood." Rude said in a monotone voice.

"The target still has a heartbeat, so don't let Tall Dark and Gloomy make you think this is a waste, but he is right about the injuries. I don't know how we can save him ourselves." Reno added.

"Floor it to HQ and keep him stable. I have an idea." Cissnei responded; she didn't even let go of the transmit button before she started dialing someone's number on her cell phone.

"Alright, HQ it is; and step on it." Reno sighed; he didn't believe Zack was dead just yet, but he didn't know what Cissnei had planned or if whatever she had planned would make any real difference.

"Tseng, they found Zack but he is beyond our help; short prolonging his life for another three to five hours. Any ideas? I… I really want to try to save him. I know I was sent to bring him in, and let him escape twice, but I just can't watch him die; not now." Cissnei pleaded with Tseng; even though he originally told them to find Zack, she wasn't sure what he planned to do afterward if they did find him alive.

"I don't know what you expect me to do if you say he is beyond our help, even with the medical team that even Shinra is jealous of." Tseng sounded slightly cold but also confused.

"Please, you have to help. I can't just watch someone die after being this close to saving them." Cissnei's voice started to break. Tseng let out a heavy sigh.

"I… I guess there is one person I can call for help, barring how much I dislike dealing with… him." Tseng sounded like a rebel teenager that ran away from home, but now was asking his parents for help out of a tight spot.

"Thank you so much, Tseng! I will go tell the others." Cissnei chirped and hung up the phone. Tseng let another sigh and dialed the number to the aforementioned help. The phone rang a few times and then a female voice answered.

"Hello, Sarif Industries, David Sarif's office. How may I help you?" the receptionist greeted Tseng.

"Connect me to David Sarif. It's an emergency." Tseng didn't waste time with introductions. The receptionist hit a few buttons and the phone was ringing again.

"David Sarif speaking. May I ask who's calling?" Sarif asked his anonymous caller.

"Tseng, of the Turks." Tseng said with slight disgust; he didn't particularly like Sarif or what his company was in the business of, but this wasn't about him.

"I have a matter I need your assistance with because it is out of our hands." Tseng disclosed the general purpose of his call, but was still reluctant to actually go through with asking him, of all people, for help.

"What are you looking for help with, exactly?" Sarif asked to get a more concrete idea of the kind of help needed from him.

"No one can find out about this; not about your help, not about me calling you for help. Nothing. We never talked; you've never even met me. Do I have your word?" Tseng knew how serious the trouble would be if anyone ever found out about this, so he reflected the seriousness in his tone and word choice.

"That won't be much of a problem since I still don't really know who you are anyway." Sarif was slightly sarcastic, but serious.

"We need you to save one of our agents with your expertise. They were gravely injured on a mission that went terribly wrong." Tseng made a slight pause before "save"; he wasn't sure if he was really saving Zack or making him suffer more than he is already by taking his humanity but keeping him alive to see it.

"If he really is beyond your help, the cost is not going to be pretty." Sarif warned.

"Just get it done. Let _me_ worry about the cost." Tseng replied and ended the call. He called Reno to tell him the news.

"Go to…*sigh*… the LIMB clinic near Sarif Industries. I will send the coordinates to your navigation system. It's your only chance and choice to save Zack." Tseng paused before "save" again; he didn't feel like upsetting Cissnei, but at the same time he wasn't sure if this was going to upset her even more than his death.

"You never called us. We are flying to extract an agent from a completed mission." Reno felt like he already knew what Tseng was going to say next so he said it for him. He hung up the phone and continued to keep an eye on Zack's condition.

When they got to the limb clinic, the Helipad and surrounding area looked deserted. Rude started the descent to land and was surprised to suddenly see people when the helicopter made contact with the roof of the building.

"Holy-… Where the hell did you guys get this guy from, a meat grinder?" one of the paramedics exclaimed.

"I want this guy inside ten minutes ago!" He barked at two other medical personnel that were running up to the helicopter.

"Well, we've done all that we can, Rude. It's out of our hands now." Reno let out a heavy sigh; he's never seen someone beyond the capabilities of the Turks' or Shinra's medical staff.

"It was never in our hands in the first place. We stole him from multiple parties that will not be happy with us." Rude replied.

"The 'multiple parties' will never find out about what happened here." Reno said dismissively.

"You cannot hide anything from Death." Rude clarified who the "other parties" were.

"Oh, drop it, Rude. The kid was dead when we got there. All we did now was prolong his life long enough so he could see his humanity taken from him while he watched." Reno grumbled as they flew back to Turk HQ.

The operating room in the LIMB clinic only had 5 people in it; however, each one was worth 20 regular surgeons skill wise.

"How are we even supposed to rescue this kid? How is he even alive? Medically and functionally speaking, he has no torso." One of the surgeons asked rhetorically.

"We thought Jensen was going to die too, but he made it. I don't think Sarif would waste time and money on a lost cause." Another surgeon reminded the group to keep hope alive.

"Jensen was a walk in the park compared to this. Now lets get to work; talking isn't going to save him or help us keep our jobs." A third surgeon said dismissively.

"What kind of augs do you want us to use, boss?" The Chief Surgeon asked Sarif via intercom.

"Give him the Adam Jensen package. He looks like he runs a lot of combat ops, or at least was in a combat op that went south, so he will need it." Sarif was a pretty good judge of people who came in for surgery; what they needed, what they didn't, that kind of thing.

"Alright, one 'Hold the Humanity, Extra Resentment' coming up." The Chief Surgeon confirmed sarcastically.

"Thank you. I just love being reminded of that. That is just what I needed." Sarif fired back with the same sarcastic tone. There was a brief silence, and then the surgeons began their work.

Almost 15 hours later, they had finally finished; the Chief Surgeon went to report the "success" to Sarif.

"It's done. We replaced just about 95% of his body with augmentations, but it's done. He's stable and being moved to the recovery ward. I wouldn't even call that surgery, that was manufacturing and engineering. You had the strength to make the decision of giving these augmentations, let's see if you have the strength to tell him he traded his humanity for his life." The Chief Surgeon reported with disgust.


	2. Chapter 2

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **Zack's POV ******

I was woken up by a steady rhythmic beeping that I heard more clearly than anything else in my life so far. The beeping could only be a heart monitor; I was in a hospital. There was something a little off, however; I could not feel the bed under me. I felt like I was watching TV through someone else's eyes.

"Am I alive?" I asked a moving white blur.

"That depends on your philosophical view of 'alive.'." The white blur answered.

"Are you an angel? Everything is blurry." I wasn't sure if I was on Earth still or had woken up in the afterlife.

"Again, depends on your philosophical view. But let me fix your blur issue." The white blur answered again, and then stung me with some sort of remote-shaped object. My vision went black for a couple seconds and then returned with inhuman clarity; I could almost see the individual fibers of the nurse's outfit. She wrote something on my bedside chart and then left the room. Shortly after, a man about in his 40s with mostly black hair and a golden hand walked in and sat down in a chair next to my bed.

"Hi, I'm David Sarif, founder and CEO of Sarif Industries. How are you feeling?" he asked me.

"What happened? Last thing I remember is lying on the ground in the rain, slowly losing consciousness. Next thing I know, I wake up here." I told him what I remembered last; I was trying to remember for myself as well. Sarif let out a heavy sigh.

"What I'm about to tell you won't be easy to hear." He sounded like a worried parent about to tell their child that their pet died. He put his hand on mine and I heard a beep in my ear. [David Sarif, founder of Sarif Industries. No threat detected.] The words suddenly appeared and seemed to float in mid air.

"What happened to my eyes?" I asked in a panicked voice, as I reached to feel them. My fingers hit a hard plastic surface that covered my eye well completely.

"You have ocular implants that help you see better. You had some damage to your eyes from whatever happened to you, so my surgeons returned your sight to pre-incident functionality; better even." Sarif explained. _It's ok, its just eye implants. Nothing major._ I thought to myself, assuring myself I was still human; augmentation had always fascinated and scared me at the same time. I looked at my arms and they looked slightly different; my muscles were at least a hundred times more defined than I last remember them. I looked at my chest and saw relatively the same thing; highly defined and slightly metallic in appearance.

"What… what all did you augment?" I asked with hesitation; part of me was afraid of the answer because of what I felt and/or didn't feel. Sarif let out a heavy sigh and stood up from the chair. He took a couple steps away from the bed before he spoke.

"We had to go beyond augmentation in some parts of your body. There was just too much damage to fix it by augmenting it, so we replaced it entirely. It was the best we could do." Sarif explained; his voice carrying more sadness than Cissnei finding me on that deserted beach. His answer broke something in me, and made me burn with the rage of Hell itself. My mind was growling with uncontrolled rage.

"Are you shitting me?!" I heard myself shout as I flew out of bed and saw a short sword swing out of my forearm like a switchblade. I was moments from contact with Sarif when I heard a piercing clash of metal against metal, followed by what felt like a sledge hammer hitting me in the stomach. There was a man in sunglasses and a black trench coat that appeared out of nowhere that had blocked my arm blade with his own and then flipped me over his back on to the floor.

"I may not have asked for my augmentations, and I may not always agree with Sarif, but I will not let him die in some punk's fit of rage." The man said in an almost growling voice.

"*cough* where the hell did you come from?" I snapped back. He was not here a couple seconds ago; was he eavesdropping?

"I'm Sarif's Chief of Security; you try anything like that again and you won't get the opportunity to ask questions later. Do you understand?" He asked in a demanding tone.

"Yeah, yeah. _You _have your humanity taken from you by force and see how you feel." I grumbled. The man picked me up by the throat and looked me right in the eyes,

"Listen, you-"He started to say before he was interrupted by Sarif.

"Hey, easy, Jensen! I didn't spend close to half a billion dollars just so you could break him 5 minutes later." Sarif put his hand on Jensen's shoulder.

"What is going on in here? Why is the fresh-out-of-O.R. patient on the floor? And why do you look like you're about to kill someone, Jensen?" The nurse asked in a concerned tone.

"The 'fresh-out-of-O.R.' patient tried to assassinate Sarif, so I neutralized the problem." Jensen grumbled in his usual tone.

"Well if you're done playing 'assassins and bodyguards', I would like to get him back into bed. He needs rest just like the rest of us after 14 hours of surgery." The nurse said sarcastically as she helped me get back onto the hospital bed.

"I think you both should leave for now." The nurse advised after I was in my bed again.

"I'll keep in touch." Sarif said as he walked out of the room with Jensen following him.

"Just press the call button if you need anything." The nurse said pleasantly and left the room. _What do I have left now that most of me is a machine? _I thought as I stared at the hospital ceiling.

"Zack! You're alive! I was afraid I we were too late; it's good that you are still with us." Cissnei sounded happy.

"With you in spirit, maybe. There is barely anything left of me. These are all augmentations and various other cybernetics. I have gone too far into it and no longer have my humanity." I grumbled; I had considered getting a couple discreet augmentations, but this was entirely too much.

"Zack, the one thing that sets us apart from machines is that we have emotions." Cissnei pleaded using her voice of reason; she could convince me of almost any viewpoint with that voice and part of me hated her for that.

"I've felt only two emotions so far: anger and resentment. I am pretty sure there are more emotions than that. I _might as well_ be a machine." I almost killed Sarif, and was snappy with almost everyone else so far, so I thought my assessment to be pretty accurate.

"You feel whatever you let into your heart the most" Cissnei unintentionally hit a nerve; though it was unintentional, it hurt just the same.

"My heart? You must mean my Guardian FX energy conversion module. That feels plenty of electrical pulses telling it to distribute synthetic blood to various parts of my cold, steel body." I snapped back sarcastically.

"Maybe I am still at least partially human since I've still got the capacity to be pissed off." I added after a few minutes of awkward silence.

"I can still feel things, but not in the same way anymore. Now, it is a computer telling me I am touching something and what it feels like. I am basically being told what to feel, and how something feels like. THAT is why I no longer feel human. And it pisses me off that I lost that because of Shinra." I started normally but ended in a growl.

"Warning, blood pressure exceeding recommended level." The patient alarm in my room chimed.

"Or you can use the patient condition alarm as your call button, whatever. That doesn't work at someone's nerves at all." The nurse sounded sarcastic, but still concerned.

"If I have to answer one more patient condition alarm because of someone dicking around, there will be no visitors allowed for 6 hours." The nurse warned as she left the room; never losing the concern from her voice.

"I… I think I better go for now." Cissnei sighed and left. _I know she didn't mean it, but damn it still hurt. _I felt bad that I snapped at Cissnei; I wouldn't have even made it to this point if it wasn't for her. I wanted to agree with her; I did still have my emotions, my dreams, and my honor. _There is no honor in hiding like a rat. I lost my honor when I escaped from that lab at the Shinra Mansion._ I thought as I remembered being on the run since the reactor incident. I wish I hadn't asked all those questions that eventually drove Sephiroth mad; Genesis was no help either. Maybe if I just went in there and-

"You pulled off one hell of a fish story, Slick." I heard Reno's voice come through the doorway. He walked in stood by my bed.

"Rude and I were racing to find you before the knuckleheads at Shinra did, but they just simply had more ground coverage. When we found you, Rude just thought you were DRT*, but I disagreed. I knew that if I just gave up right there, I would always think 'what if I could have saved him?' There was also three people counting on me, and I just couldn't live with letting them down." Reno gave me the recap of what happened before him and Rude picked me up.

"Where is Cloud? He was with me at the time." I asked him; since he brought me this far, he'd probably tell me what happened to Cloud if anything.

"I didn't see him down there. The helicopter sensors did pick up another presence in the area, but it was non-hostile so we didn't bother with it. If Rude had seen Cloud, he hasn't said anything. You never asked me that question. You're not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be here. This operation never happened. It's supposedly a completely black project, but since there is more than one person that knows about it, I'm not sure how black it will stay and for how long. With that said, I'll see you around." Reno started walking away but I still had some questions.

"Wait! How is…how is Aeris?" I asked; the Turks were always weird when I asked about her, but I figured it was worth a try.

"She thinks you're dead. I suggest if you want to stay alive, you keep it that way. If you show up to Midgar, Shinra will find you, and they will kill you. Again." Reno said in a grave tone and walked out of the room. _At least I know she's alright; physically anyway._ I was comforted by the fact that Reno actually gave me an answer more concrete than "hmm" or "don't worry about it" like Tseng usually did when I asked about Aeris. Even though Reno told me to stay away from Midgar, I'm sure I'll find a way to visit her with the endless amount of augmentations I have now.

"Good to see my efforts weren't wasted. Well, not _entirely_ wasted." Tseng's slightly regretful voice floated through the door.

"You! Here to turn me into those freaks at the Science Department?" I snarled at him; I'm surprised he even dared to show up here. A sudden panic came over me. _How did he even know I was here? Is this what Reno meant_? My mind was racing frantically to and from all kinds of wild theories.

"Warning, heart rate exceeding good health guidelines." The alarm in my room chirped again. The nurse showed up almost instantly.

"Alright, you! Out! Now. No more visitors for 6 hours." She said sternly; an armed security guard 'convinced' Tseng to leave. I did not feel like dealing with him right now. I turned off the lights in my room and tried to get some sleep.

*Dead Right There


	3. Chapter 3

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** Conversation in David Sarif's Office ****

David Sarif's office was rather large to be just an office, but he was the company founder after all so most people who got the chance to be in it didn't say anything.

"I got to see some of the tech you put into that new kid that came through here. What exactly are you trying to do, boss?" Jensen asked casually.

"That operation was private, Adam." Sarif said in a disappointed tone; Jensen may be chief of security, but he didn't necessarily have to know _everything_.

"I just know the guy who takes out the trash. And he told me about some of the boxes he threw away. I know you're not supposed to talk about this operation, but since he told me and no one else I don't consider it a breach of security; if I don't know this is going on, how am I supposed to keep people away that don't need to be around while that's going on?" Jensen had been working for Sarif for a while so he knew how to word things and bend interpretations of rules to calm Sarif.

"How do you know it was from that operation?" Sarif tried to dodge the issue and pass it off as a different operation.

"Don't bullshit me, boss. The guy picked the boxes up from the operation room himself." Jensen didn't buy Sarif's feeble attempt at misdirection.

"The kid looked like he was dressed for combat ops and one went south so I gave him an edge." Sarif shrugged.

"One combat op goes south on a rookie and you put $480 million worth of augs in him? Something doesn't add up." Jensen could always find a rat in the details if there was one.

"First of all, they did tell me he was a 1st class officer in his organization. But also, you got me. I am trying to sell a little extra because the alphabet agency contracts have been a bit slow. Am I a bad person for that?" Sarif admitted.

"This is more than 'a little' extra. This is selling part of a branch of the Armed Forces." Jensen felt like there was more to the story that Sarif was telling him. Sarif let out a heavy sigh.

"Alright, do you want to know the real, whole story? Here it is. Tseng called me and asked to help save that kid's life. The kid is apparently highly valuable to either some other people in Tseng's organization, or maybe people outside of it; he didn't say." Sarif spilled the rest of the beans that he hasn't until now.

"The kid barely has anything of his human body left. How exactly did you save him? Why did you even take the job?" Jensen was remembering the attempt on his life and the operation afterward.

"I didn't see the kid before they brought him in, and I couldn't turn them away afterward. I'm not even sure I did the right thing anymore. He might as well be a humanoid robot with advanced AI to mimic the kid's behaviors and mannerisms." Sarif sounded like he broke under Jensen's grilling; not really want Jensen intended to do, but either way there was no undoing it now.

"You talk to him. I'm sure you had similar feelings after your operation." Jensen suggested; he had relatively the same conversation with Jensen after he got augmented. Jensen and Zack didn't exactly start off on the right foot, but that was several hours ago.

**** **Zack's POV ******

I slept surprisingly well after all that's happened in the last 20 hours.

"I know what you're going through. You get gravely injured but people aren't done with you so they try to save you; whether they actually _did _save you becomes an eternal difference of opinion." Jensen's gruff voice was kind of quiet so I at first thought I was just hearing it in my head. I looked up and I saw him standing in the door.

"I won't do anything flashy if you don't." Jensen said with a slight smile. He walked up to my bed but he didn't sit down; I could tell he wasn't much of the talkative type so I knew he wasn't going to be here for long.

"I never asked for my operation, but it did help me get justice for the company, and more importantly, for myself; maybe your augs can help you do the same. I would suggest going to talk to Sarif when you're ready; he can tell you more about the operation and your augmentations." Jensen briefly talked about his experience; I understand why he protects David Sarif like he does. He may be mad at Sarif for doing this to him, but at the same time he gave him a chance to seek justice.

"One more piece of advice; don't think you're invincible with your newfound power. That was a lesson I learned the hard way." Jensen said as he walked out of the room. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I had a feeling I would find out soon enough; hopefully not in the same way he did. I decided I would try to get up; I've been in bed for almost 3 days straight. I hit the call button and waited for a response.

"Hey, you actually used the call button and there is no one in here causing trouble; that's always good." I felt like the nurse never left the vicinity of my room past 10 feet; I wouldn't really blame her with how many times my patient condition alarm went off.

"I would like to try and get up, maybe walk around the room. I'm getting restless just laying here." I thought it would be nice to follow hospital protocol for once and not wear peoples' nerves by setting off alarms.

"Stay out of trouble." The nurse said with a smirk as she disconnected some wires and sensors from me. I tried to sit up on the bed but I found that I couldn't move my arms or any part of my body besides my eyes.

"Oh, sorry. We had an E.M.P. installed in this room in case you turned into a vegetarian painter again. We turned it off while Jensen visited you." The nurse apologized and put in a key code into a console in the corner of the room. I tried again and managed to sit up this time, but when I tried to stand up I fell on my hands and knees.

"Give your body a couple seconds to readjust from E.M.P. stasis." The nurse advised. I tried to get up again and managed to stay on my feet this time; it didn't really feel any different than before, maybe this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

"You might want to put some clothes on before you go visit anyone." The nurse said with a smirk; as if on cue, the air conditioner turned on and I felt a cold breeze all over my body.

"Ha, you haven't lost your humanity yet, boy; you can still blush." The nurse giggled as she walked out of the room. My face felt hot so I didn't doubt her words. She returned in a couple of minutes with a spare set of clothes; all folded neatly into the shirt so it looked like one item.

"This was David Sarif's idea. As long as you don't stray too far from the LIMB clinic or Sarif HQ, you should be hidden enough for now." She said after putting the set of clothes on the chair next to my bed.

"As far as the rest of the city, I'm sure your ocular implants will tell you which parts to stay away from." She warned vaguely and left the room. I put on the set of clothes and went to take a walk. _"You should visit Sarif when you're ready. He will be able to tell you more about the operation and augmentations."_ Jensen's suggestion floated through my mind. It was probably the best course of action right now, seeing as I have no idea what to do or where to go after the operation; I couldn't stay at the hospital forever. I walked out of the doors of the LIMB Clinic and looked around; this city slightly reminded me of Midgar. _"You must not go to Midgar. They will find you, and they will kill you. Again." _Reno's voice was in my head this time. He was right about one thing for sure: just because I was dead- well, assumed dead- didn't mean Shinra stopped looking for me. I guess assuming _does_ make an ass out of you and me. I walked around for a while and finally found Sarif HQ; it was a pretty big building so I kind of wondered how I didn't see it sooner. I went inside and headed towards the lobby, a couple guards waving at me as they walked by me; did they know me? Or did Sarif tell them I was coming? I followed the signs to David Sarif's office. On the way through one of the corridors I walked by a security monitor and thought I saw a guard walking where I was on the screen. I got a jolt of unexplainable fear and whipped around to look behind me, only to see that there was no one there. I looked at the screen again, more closely this time, and saw my face in the guard outfit that spooked me a few seconds ago; Sarif had given me a guard outfit to blend in with the other people at the company. That is why the nurse specified to stay close to the LIMB clinic and Sarif HQ. When I got to the entrance to Sarif's office, the secretary didn't even ask who I was and just buzzed Sarif's office.

"Security requesting to speak with you, sir."

"Alright, send them in."

"Mr. Sarif is ready for you." She told me and went turned back to a computer screen. I walked into Sarif's office and saw everyone that visited me at the hospital, including a new face I hadn't seen before.

"Cissnei! That was a hell of a lot longer than 10 minutes. Did you finally return to the Turks? Is that why Tseng is here?" I demanded; I did not like the look of Tseng being here during what was supposed to be a black operation. I started to think it was a mistake coming here. _Was Jensen in on this and lead me into a trap?_ My mind was rolling over crazy theories again.

"No, Zack. He's the one that told me to find you. It's ok. I promise." Cissnei said in a calming voice.

"Why did you suddenly switch sides?" I asked; I didn't believe that he just switched sides like that. I worked with him enough to see that he took his job very seriously.

"I saw that you were classified as 'Killed in Action' after you went to the Nibelheim reactor. With Sephiroth. I didn't really believe the announcement of the deaths of Angeal and Genesis either, but when they announced that Sephiroth was 'Killed in Action' at a reactor in the middle of nowhere, I knew the company was hiding something. That is when I knew I had to find you before they did." Tseng explained the reason for his going rogue.

"But that didn't really work out because Shinra is everywhere." I sighed.

"Shinra hasn't come to this corner of the world yet." Cissnei tried to lighten the pessimistic mood of the conversation.

"Zack is still Shinra property, so your optimism is just uninformed bliss." Rude said in his usual monotone voice.

"Hey, he is _not_ property he is a person. He does not 'belong' to anyone. I may have referred to him as 'the target' during the mission, but I was really just trying to keep it low key and professional." Reno objected.

"I don't know about not belonging to anyone, Reno. Zack was all Aeris talked about for the first year that he was gone." Tseng said with a slight smile.

"Tseng! I thought we agreed to cut it with the you-know-who talk." Reno shot a dirty look at Tseng.

"_He…going…suicide…went…see her." _I heard fragments of what Reno very quietly hissed at Tseng after he walked over to him.

"You went through all this trouble to save me, and I can't even go see the person that wanted me alive the most? How does that even make sense?" I was getting angry at everyone dancing around current issues and not telling me anything concrete; that is unless they were telling me something I could not do, and then it was in plain black and white.

"Zack. You've got to understand. It's too dangerous. You may be capable of a lot more than you were before the operation, but you are still only one person." Tseng reasoned with me.

"One person against a giant company like Shinra? You're a good kid, but I would have to place my money on Shinra if I was a betting man." Reno looked completely serious for the first time since the operation.

"Mr. Sarif, I would like talk about my operation. I would like to know more than 'we took your humanity to keep you alive'." If I wanted to get anything out of big business owners like David Sarif, I had to sound professional.

"Look at the new kid sounding like a businessman. They grow up so fast, don't they, Jensen?" The unfamiliar face commented. I looked over to see a man about in his 30's wearing a black and orange jacket with a white turtleneck under it; the bottom of his cargo pants neatly covered the top of his dress shoes.

"Oh, sorry, Pritchard. This is Zack Fair. He just came out of an operation a day ago or so. Zack, this is Francis Pritchard; he is our chief of cyber-security. He is usually the first line of help our augmented employees go to for help." Sarif briefly introduced us to each other.

"Now, onto business. Regrettably, I must now ask everyone except Jensen to leave as this is highly classified information." Sarif announced to the rest of the group.

"Please, Zack. Don't make any rash decisions. No matter what kind of technology he gave you, you can't stand against Shinra alone. Don't let Sarif's efforts go to waste. You do not want to see Shinra end up with your augmentations." Cissnei pleaded with me one last time before she left the room with the others. As the door shut, a steel door came down over it; the windows closed and also armored themselves in the same fashion.

"We are secure, Boss." Jensen announced.


	4. Chapter 4

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

"Alright, kid. What do you want to know? Or should I just start listing things off and explaining them?" Sarif asked me.

"What are my combat capabilities now?" I asked; I figured I would ask about what I would use the most.

"You should listen to your friends. Don't go playing the hero." Jensen said before Sarif had time to reply.

"I… I gave up on that dream. It only brought suffering to everyone I cared about." I sighed as Director Lazard's voice floated through my head. _"Unattainable dreams are the best kind."_ What do they expect me to do if not seek justice for myself? Jensen had the same operation and no one stopped him from getting answers.

"I will start with the basics. This is your first line of offense if you don't have a gun or sword already." Sarif pointed at a screen with diagrams on it.

"The man you tried to kill with the arm blade that he designed is now explaining to you how it works; this is the first thing I've had to laugh about in 6 months." Jensen said with a smirk.

"Let's not bring up old misunderstandings and unpleasantries, Jensen. That will get us nowhere." Sarif sighed; most likely remembering my outburst in the hospital. I looked at the blueprints and imagined how it would work; the blades came out almost instantly after looking at the screen.

"Jensen was the only one to draw his so naturally, until now. Are you sure you have never heard of Sarif Industries before?" Sarif asked with a drop of suspicion.

"I didn't even know you could have weapons augmented onto you. I thought you always had to carry them around, and if you forgot them somewhere you were screwed." I answered slightly sheepishly.

"Technically, your first line of offense is physical takedowns, but that's not as much of an augmentation as it is combat training." Jensen enlightened me with some of his experience.

"Honestly, most of your augmentations are not meant for offense, but more for survivability and some for evasion. That's not to say that certain combinations of them can't be used for offense; it's just that by themselves they are mainly a survival tool." Sarif almost sounded like he was warning me that I was not the elite agent of death that the operation made me sound like at first.

"There is one more purely offensive augmentation that you have. The Typhoon. It's an experimental weapon I have developed for the alphabet agencies. Being an experimental weapon, it and all information about it is highly classified. When used as an augmentation, it has very low ammo capacity and thus should be saved for exigent circumstances only. You and Jensen both have the heavy damage variant, so make sure that anything within 10 yards of you is not something you will regret completely obliterating; if exigent circumstances call on you to use it against human targets... just hope you never have to use it on human targets." It felt like Sarif was telling me I had the equivalent of a nuclear warhead just augmented into my back or something.

"In case I get spotted and I don't have the chance to deliver the first blow, or things start getting hot, what kind of defenses can I expect?" defensive augmentations should sound safer and not as grim.

"The Glass Shield Cloaking System and dermal plating are basically what's going to be keeping you alive, aside from using your brain and common sense. I have slightly modified the Glass Shield system to mimic the surrounding temperature when its active so that it can hide you from thermal scans as well; avoid using it for more than a couple minutes if you are in extreme temperatures." The last part of Sarif's warning didn't fully make sense.

"Basically, don't use it too long if the ambient temperature of your location is uncomfortable." He added. _Because I will either cook or freeze to death; makes sense._ I thought as the video demonstrating the use of Glass Shield played.

"The dermal plating can only take so much abuse before you have to come back to either Sarif or a LIMB clinic, so don't think you're invincible." Jensen warned me again.

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'abuse'' especially in conjunction with the Glass Shield system." I was not entirely sure what his warning was about. In the blink of an eye, Jensen drew a pistol and shot me in the arm; the sound of the gunshot and ricochet off of my plated shoulder thundered through the office and left a ringing in my ears. _I'm still human enough to get shellshock; maybe I'm more human than I originally thought._

"What the hell was that for?" I shouted; I couldn't believe he just shot me like that without even thinking.

"The dermal plating has some minor self-repairing capabilities. That bullet mark will be gone within the next minute or so. We have some samples of it in a shooting range if you want to see how it reacts to different weapon types; it will be knowledge that will help you stay alive in the field doing… whatever you plan to." Sarif explained.

"I don't the samples will be necessary. I will just try my best not to get shot. Again." Flashbacks of fighting the Shinra army flooded my mind.

"Don't be a hero if there are snipers involved." Jensen always gave vague warnings; really anything he said was at least slightly vague or had another meaning.

"Why do you always only give me vague warnings instead of actually telling me what to watch out for?" I asked him; I decided to call him on his verbal elusiveness.

"No one told me anything about how to use what augmentation. I just had to figure out which ones were best to use with which by myself. Augmented life is not easy, so I'm just making sure it doesn't go to your head." Jensen sounded slightly resentful, but that was normal for him.

"The last augmentation you should know about is smart vision. It lets you see through walls and tries its best to mark hostiles and friendlies; ultimately, it's your judgment upon getting to the other side of that wall." Sarif said as a brief video demonstrating smart vision played; the screen turned off shortly after.

"That's it? That doesn't really sound like much." I said in a confused voice; they made it sound like they replaced my whole body with augmentations.

"The rest is just standard boilerplate so I will just let you find those out on your own." Sarif said dismissively.

"Sarif doesn't waste time explaining base-level augmentations. He has prepared an apartment for you in my building. There should be a computer with some videos that will answer any other questions you might have." Jensen explained.

"Alright, well I guess I will go there then." I started to walk towards the door but Jensen stopped me.

"My apartment isn't exactly in the best neighborhood, so I'll ask Malik to take you there; if you just walk there, there's bound to be trouble and your presence here won't be so secret anymore." Jensen almost sounded as if he was making a jab at me.

"I resent that. What's that supposed to mean?" I objected.

"People down there don't take kindly to security guards; I don't see your outbursts of rage and their 'turf aggression' mixing well." Jensen essentially made another jab; I decided not to say anything else because I knew I couldn't win anyway. He walked me to the helipad and then went back inside.

"Hello, there. David Sarif doesn't just board anyone, so you're lucky. I'm Faridah Malik." Malik introduced herself. I drew breath to say something, but I was cut off by Malik.

"If anyone asks or we get shot down, I don't know anything; make your escape as discreet as possible." Malik advised.

"Jeez, what kind of neighborhood are we going to if that's what you're worried about?" I was suddenly very worried for both of our well-being.

"I'm not worried about it too much where we are going, just thought I would warn you just in case; previous experience and all. I would say you should ask Jensen about it, but I doubt he would want to talk about it." Malik explained as we took off towards the apartments.

For being next to what looked like the slums in Sector 5, this was a really nice apartment; you couldn't even tell that you were right across the street from the slums until you looked out the window. I saw the laptop Jensen was talking about on the coffee table in the living room so I decided to go and look through it; I was going to need the knowledge contained in there one day. I hit a key to take it out of standby, and then clicked "play all"; I was kind of tired so I just assumed they had already set it up for me so all I would have to do is hit "play all".

"There should be a ventilation hatch on the roof of the adjacent building overlooking the plant. That will be your point of entry."  
"Should be? What the hell does that mean, Francis?" I heard Pritchard and Jensen's voices from a video of Jensen walking along a rooftop. _That's a bit odd. Oh well, people make mistakes and mix-ups. _ I thought as I skipped to the next one.

"Jensen! Where are you? What happened? You've been offline for 3 days."

"I was hoping you could tell me."  
You're in…Singapore."

"I think I have a lead on where I might find Megan and her team." _This isn't it either. Just what is going on?_ I skipped to the next one. _If this isn't it either, I'm going to go talk to Jensen._

"Megan! What are you doing here?"

"This isn't what it looks like! I had no choice."  
"Why exactly did they want you?"

"I… used your DNA. You perfectly bonded with your augmentations, and I wanted to help other people take to their augmentations like you did. I wanted to tell you, but there was just no time." I suddenly regretted skipping to this one because I felt like this was something not meant to ever be unburied. I closed the laptop and decided to visit Jensen's apartment; maybe he had my laptop since I obviously had his.

"Looking for your laptop?" Jensen was waiting for me outside the door of his apartment; that made finding his apartment a lot easier.

"I was tired so I just hit 'play all' when I opened it. I will try to forget everything I heard because it sounded like none of my business." I apologized.

"It's nothing I'm worried about. Here is your laptop." Jensen said dismissively; he handed me my laptop and went back inside. _That went well_. I thought to myself as I walked back to my apartment.

"Non-lethal Takedowns: Part 1." A robotic voice read the text on a black intro screen. There were several short clips of Jensen performing several takedowns from different angles.

"Advanced Non-lethal takedowns: For use on two or 3 targets at once." The voice read another screen. This time it was a video of Jensen taking out a group of 3 mobsters. The second video was of him taking down two security guards with robotic-looking armor and helmets. Looked easy enough; I'm sure I could improvise if need be when the time came.

"Lethal takedowns: Part 1" _Makes sense that this part is at the end of the video set_. I thought as the camera focused on Jensen standing next to a practice dummy.

"This video set is just a guideline or suggestion of how to perform takedowns. If you're planning a lethal takedown, aim for any of the vitals. The heart is not advised unless you are a seasoned professional." Jensen didn't quite sound like himself in this video.

"End of set." The robotic voice announced. _Jensen's computer was more interesting; even though it was none of my business to look at._ I thought as I lay back on the couch.

"Warning: Missile incoming at 3 o'clock. Distance: 80 feet and closing fast." A robotic voice chirped in my head. I sprang up off of the couch and looked at my window; sure enough, there was a missile heading straight for me.

"Danger! 30 feet and closing!" the voice chirped urgently. I froze as I was flooded with flashbacks of the mission in Banora.

"Impact in 6 seconds! Serious injury imminent!" the voice sounded even more urgent. I bolted out of the path of the missile; I must have temporarily lost control of my movement because a few seconds later I felt my self crash through the wall of my apartment and into someone else's. Fractions of a second after entering his apartment, I was momentarily deafened by the sound of the missile exploding. The room filled with dust.


	5. Chapter 5

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

"What the hell is going on?" an angry voice came from in front of me, followed by the racking slide of a firearm; most likely a shotgun as most civilians didn't have access to assault weapons. _I am so dead. A shotgun at this close range won't just bounce off like Jensen's bullet did._ I thought as I sat on the ground, frozen in fear. The dust settled, but the man holding a shotgun that it revealed didn't seem to be making any advances towards me. He almost looked like he was…looking for me?

"Where did you go, aug? Quit hiding!" he growled. I turned to look at my reflection in the window and saw that there was nothing there; I must have activated the Glass Shield system Sarif told me about. I used this opportunity to scramble to my feet and sneak out the front door.

"I'll find you, you bastard! You can't hide forever!" I heard his voice again, muffled by the door this time. A few seconds later, I saw a battery icon with a line through it briefly flash in the center of my vision. I looked down and saw my feet again. _Must run on a separate battery, because I don't feel tired at all._

"Freeze! Put your hands on your head or we _will_ shoot!" a commanding voice came down the hall. Shinra soldiers. _How did they find me so fast? Was Rude being serious?_ My mind raced as I stared at the squad of Shinra soldiers at the end of the hall.

"This is your last warning! You have 5 seconds to comply!" The soldier commanded again. I tried to activate the cloaking system again, but the same battery icon flashed again.

"Alright, well I will see you after work." I heard a voice coming from a door that recently opened. I bolted for it, barely missing the person going through it the other way. I briefly heard a mix of Shinra soldier's voices and shouts of protests of the unsuspecting residents of the apartment that I barged into before I smashed through their window; I felt the ground leave my feet and the outside air meeting me with a warm embrace. _Death by jumping out of a building. That's just great. I'm just going from one path to death to another._ As I fell, I felt myself actually slowing down. I looked ahead of me and I was coming down onto what looked like an abandoned apartment building. I had a rough landing, but that is to be expected when I wasn't exactly planning on jumping out of an 18th story window. I got up and ran to the roof access door; I didn't bother using the handle because it was most likely locked anyway.

"What was that? Go check it out." I heard a voice from around the corner of the corridor; soon after, I heard footsteps coming down the corridor. I ducked back behind the outside wall on the roof. The footsteps got closer and closer until they stopped right outside where the door used to be.

"Anyone out here? Show yourself." A man with a shotgun demanded. I quietly snuck behind him and through the door.

"Well, what was it?" the first voice demanded. I thought back to the video about smart vision. A red figure materialized in my vision; he was on the landing to the next floor down. I slowly walked to the end of the corridor and turned the corner. I saw an open door so I walked to it as quickly and quietly as possible; once I got in, I closed the door behind me.

"Hey, cholo. You looking to buy some… unlicensed firepower?" a voice behind me asked in a sly voice. I turned around and saw a bald man with a golden arm holding a shotgun in the company of a smaller man standing next to a large case of weapons.

"I… I don't have any money on me. I'm actually trying to get away from someone. Sorry for intruding on your business." I stammered out.

"Wait a minute… you're one of Sarif's…friends… I guess I could let you have a freebie. He's sent plenty of customers my way; some he doesn't even know that he did." I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that this guy recognized me, but if he gave me something to help with my current 'people issues', it couldn't be all that bad.

"This should solve your… problems…provided your aim is good enough." He said with a smirk as he handed me a pistol with an extra clip. I put the extra clip in my pocket and racked the slide of the pistol.

"I was not expecting this; thank you very much. Just so happens my 'problem' is just outside the door." I thanked the merchant and slowly started walking towards the door; but before I could get to it, it swung open and I saw a guy with a bandana over his face holding a shotgun aimed at me.  
"So you're the-" his recognition of me was interrupted by three gunshots from the pistol I just bought.

"I'll take care of the body, just go. You're obviously wanted dead." The man in the trench coat offered.

"I hear you, T! I'm coming!" I heard from the roof access door. I heard running footsteps followed by a gunshot; the bullet ricocheting off my shoulder.

"Damn augs! This is DRB turf!" he shouted before he met the same fate as "T". I kicked in the next door I saw; luckily no one was home at the time. I hid in the bathtub and drew the shower curtain.

"Cissnei! I don't know how, but they found me. The Shinra army. I gave them the slip for now, but they know I'm in the area." I told her through my infolink.

"Obviously someone wanted to sabotage your life. I'm picking up a GPS broadcast of your location." Pritchard's voice popped into the infolink.

"I've set up a GPS dead zone at Sarif HQ. If you can get here, I can see what I can do about deactivating that broadcast." He informed me.

"Please be careful, Zack." Cissnei sounded like she was more than just professionally concerned. There was no time to dwell on that; I heard the sound of a helicopter landing on the roof; just outside of the apartment I was in. Before it even sounded like the engine was turned off, I heard footsteps coming into the apartment; a couple seconds later, the shower curtain flew back.

"Area is clear. He's here somewhere." A Shinra soldier reported into his radio. I snuck around him and onto the roof; I thought to turn off my cloaking system as soon as I got outside to conserve energy this time. I turned the engine on and started to take off. I had barely gotten a few feet from the building when I heard them spot me.

"He's in the helicopter! Shoot it down!" the radio squawked. I turned towards Sarif HQ and floored it. As soon as Sarif HQ came into view, I heard an alarm going off inside the helicopter. Before I could wonder what it was, my personal warning system told me.

"Missile incoming: 40 feet and closing. ETA 15 seconds." It warned me. _They are on me like Angeal on discipline and honor. _Sarif HQ was getting closer, but so was the missile. _Just a little bit-_

"Danger: 4 seconds until impact" my thoughts were interrupted by the same urgent voice as back at my apartment. I activated my cloak and bailed out of the helicopter; the fireball of the explosion singed the back of my clothes. The helicopter that had shot mine down turned around to fly back and report success. I thought I had gotten away from them, but when I landed I found out I was mistaken. There was a giant mechanical scorpion between me and the stairs to Sarif HQ. _If this is not an emergency, I don't want to know what is._ I thought and immediately tried to activate the Typhoon system; I was answered by an icon of 4 small bullets with a diagonal line through them. _I could always cloak and run under it._

"Hostile entities detected. Target locked." I heard a robotic voice behind me, followed by the sound of several missiles being launched but my warning system was silent; four missiles seemingly fell from the sky and destroyed the scorpion.

"Threat neutralized. You have been the victim of a violent attack. It is advised you go home and rest. This incident has been reported to the Detroit Police Department and other applicable authorities." When I turned around to see the source of the voice, I saw a metallic cube that looked like it possibly unfolded into some sort of guard. I took off towards the stairs as if the devil himself was after me; honestly might as well have been, with who it is. When I got to Pritchard's office, he raised an eyebrow at my appearance.

"You got shot, burned, _and_ managed to see a ghost all within the last couple of hours. I know Jensen isn't much of a people person either, but he usually doesn't get this many people to hate him within just a couple of hours." Pritchard commented.

"I got shot by a gang member, and then I stole a Shinra helicopter and got shot down. I look like I've seen a ghost because after bailing out of a flying helicopter, I landed right in front of a giant mechanical scorpion." I explained.

"Jensen would laugh at your mechanical insect. He challenged Belltower and won; but that's irrelevant to current business. I need to get to an access port on your spine so I can turn off your GPS broadcast." Pritchard dismissed my troubles and offered help at the same time. I took my shirt off and he plugged in what looked like a large cell phone.

"It actually looks like one of ours. It is usually standard practice to implant a GPL along with as much tech as you're walking around with, but it is not supposed to broadcast to just anyone." Pritchard said after a few minutes of hitting multiple buttons on whatever he plugged in.

"Ok, your little friends shouldn't be following you around anymore; not so closely anyway. Just don't show your face too many places and they will never know you're here." He said after hitting a few more buttons and unplugging the device.

"I am lucky there was a police robot behind me. I almost died to that scorpion if it wasn't for that robot. You said I had the Typhoon but I found out I had no ammo for it." I thought if I told Pritchard about it, I would get somewhere.

"You really think they would just _give_ you ammo to something like that for free?" Pritchard laughed; I was wrong about getting somewhere, obviously.

"There is nothing you would face here that you would need the Typhoon for." Pritchard told me what I already knew; I'm guessing the scorpion was an exception.

"Well, thank you for getting Shinra off my back, at least." I sighed as I walked out of his office.

"Don't be so depressed; you're still alive!" Pritchard really knew how to push your buttons sometimes.

I barely got a few feet from Pritchard's office when I got a call from Sarif.

"I heard you asked about the Typhoon. I will repeat what Pritchard said and add something of my own. You will not need the Typhoon for anything here and you are NOT going to Midgar." Sarif was apparently also on the "Don't go to Midgar" wagon now.

"Why do I even have it then?" I felt teased; they give me an experimental augmentation but tell me I'm never going to go anywhere to use it.

"That was my fault. I was unclear in my instructions to the surgeons, but it's too late now. Other than that mistake, I had very specific instructions to keep you here in Detroit." Sarif explained. I ended the call. Everyone was always telling me where I could and couldn't go; this was not much different from when I was in SOLDIER. It was different in SOLDIER though; you actually had orders to follow and assignments to complete. All I do here is wander around town with everyone telling me "Don't go to Midgar".

"Zack, Please don't do anything rash. You're… you're the only person that hasn't treated me like just another suit. You made me feel like I was still a person, and not just a number on a payroll register. You're the only person that has ever made me question my orders. I don't want to lose you. Stay out of trouble. If not for yourself, then for me, Ok? I would really appreciate it." Cissnei almost reminded me of Aeris; except for the payroll part. My burning desire to get back at the Shinra forces in Detroit faded with this call from Cissnei; she seemed to have a knack for calming me down when I was being impulsive and possibly self-destructive.


	6. Chapter 6

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

_I can't keep hiding forever. They found me once; they will eventually find me again._ I kept thinking about Cissnei's phone call and the GPL. I couldn't keep hiding, but I couldn't really go back to Midgar either; well I could, but I didn't want to upset Cissnei. _I've got it; I will just sneak into Midgar to check up on Aeris and Cloud, then I will return here. I probably can't take Shinra alone because I've already failed once; and that was just against infantry only._ I would come back and ask the others for help; I would say nothing about my prior secret trip. I started walking towards the bus station; since I didn't know where anything was in this city, I got lost within a couple minutes. _Wow. This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've done in a while; set out for a bus station without even knowing where it is._ After a couple hours of walking around the city, I finally found it; as soon as I saw it, however, I was stopped by a large throwing star that stuck into the building behind me.

"Zack! Did my call mean nothing to you? I didn't save you the first time just so you would go back and get yourself killed again." Cissnei sounded angry but also concerned.

"I can't keep hiding here forever. They already found me once, they will find me again. I have to go finish this. You don't have to support my decision, just understand it. I'm not just doing this for me; I'm doing this for everyone." I had to try to make her see the big picture.

"Zack, don't do this. Don't force me to…" Cissnei's voice started to break.

"I'm sorry, but I must do this." I said and took a step towards the bus station; I had no idea what was coming to me as a result of that step. Cissnei took something out of her pocket and thrust it at me the way one thrusts a rapier. Lightning shot out of her hand and knocked me through the building behind me.

"System failure due to overload of energy converter module. Rebooting and switching to emergency back-up power. Seek technician assistance immediately." The voice in my head announced after my vision had returned to me.

"Zack! Oh, my God! Are you alright? I don't know what came over me." Cissnei asked in a heavily panicked voice; tears had started rolling down her face.

"For being hit in the face with a thunderstorm, I'm not too bad. Otherwise, I feel like I need a casket to lie down in." I groaned. I slowly got up and crawled out of the building. Cissnei knew her way around the city, but it still felt like several hours before we got back to Sarif HQ.

"Oh, wow, let's get you into the medical bay. Security!" the receptionist shouted as soon as she saw me.

"Energy critical. Shutting down non-essential systems." The voice in my head announced and everything went black.

**** **Omniscient Observer POV ******

"What happened? Generally, energy converter modules aren't overloaded by the user but by some outside force." The surgeon asked; in rare cases they did, but most people don't know that so this was a good way to clear or confirm any suspicions of foul play.

"I… I had a very heated argument with Zack. I don't exactly know how this happened. When I realized what I did, it had already happened." Cissnei's voice was laden with sorrow and worry.

"What did you do, exactly?" The surgeon was curious about Cissnei's vagueness. Cissnei pulled out a large green marble.

"Materia. It's condensed Mako energy that is rumored to have the knowledge of powerful beings called Ancients. They were completely in tune with the planet and the elements, so they could command them at will. Materia lets us humans borrow that power." Cissnei explained, but wasn't expecting him to understand.

"Well, since it is just a moderate overload, it won't take long to fix. I'll just have to put in electrical and E.M.P. shielding to prevent further damage or recurring instances. "The surgeon informed her. The surgeon left to work on the operation of fixing Zack's energy module, while Cissnei thought about what to do next.  
I'm going to go talk to Jensen. Maybe he can convince him that it's a bad idea to go to Midgar. Surely he will at least protect Sarif's investment, if nothing else she thought as she headed off to Jensen's office.

"Jensen went home for the day." a passing guard told her when she got to his office. She wasn't too comfortable going to Jensen's apartment to bother him with work stuff, but this was important.  
"What do you want?" Jensen grumbled when he opened the door: he was just about to fall asleep when Cissnei knocked on the door.  
"It's...it's about Zack. I need you to convince him that it's a bad idea to go back to Midgar." Cissnei said in a concerned voice.  
"Come in." Jensen sighed with slight defeat; there goes his nap.  
"Shinra is bigger than both of us, and if he goes back, he will just get killed. I don't want to lose him twice." Cissnei explained.  
"He can't hide forever. Shinra found him once, they will find him again. Let me tell you about something." Jensen offered; Cissnei was caught off guard because she didn't take Jensen for much of a story teller.

"I originally got augmented when an Illuminati hit squad attacked Sarif Industries and kidnapped Megan. I didn't know it was the Illuminati at first, but I knew I had to seek justice. The Illuminati is bigger than all of us; from what I saw on my journey for revenge, the Illuminati could crush Shinra like a mosquito. Even when I found out who attacked us, I knew I could not stop just because they were a big organization. Although I was physically alone when I fought them, I had help in every other aspect. I fully understand Zack's desire for revenge. He never asked for this; neither did I. You are right about one thing; he cannot do this alone. He does not have enough experience to go alone. Physically or otherwise. If you, Pritchard, and everyone else helps him in whatever way they can, he will achieve his goal." Jensen took a double shot of liquor from the bottle on the coffee table; the Illuminati and Megan's kidnapping were not something he wanted to think about, much less talk about.  
"I will help him too. I will probably be most useful as physical backup when/if he needs it."  
"I... I guess you're right. We can't hide forever. He only got out of the hospital for fighting with Shinra just a few days ago. I don't want him to go back this soon." Cissnei sighed, and then realized how little time passed since the first incident.  
"You don't have to tell him today. But you have to tell him eventually; before Shinra finds him again." Jensen warned.

"I guess. I've got to go and think about things." Cissnei said as she got up from the couch and walked towards the door.

"You really don't have a choice in whether you're going to Midgar or not. You will have to eventually; if you plan on staying alive." Jensen reminded her. Cissnei sighed and left Jensen's apartment; there was one more person that she wanted to talk to.

"I'm guessing you want me to stop Zack somehow from leaving Detroit?" Pritchard asked before Cissnei even got in the door to his office.

"I can't really set up any proximity kill-switches or invisible fences without Sarif's written permission. Both him and I take those specifically very seriously; one kill-switch or invisible fence either set up at the wrong time, wrong place, or incorrectly, and it could be catastrophic." Pritchard warned.

"He wants to go back to Midgar. He will get killed. I will do anything in my power to prevent that from happening again." Cissnei voiced her reasoning for wanting his help.

"Including killing him yourself with lightning, right?" Pritchard was sometimes a little too-well informed and made borderline hurtful sarcastic comments about what he knew.

"That was not intentional! Thank you for making me feel horrible about it." Cissnei snapped back.

"I can't give him the Typhoon ammo either. Only Sarif has access to that." Pritchard knew the question was coming so he decided to head it off preemptively.

"I will help Zack however I can, if he does decide to go back to Midgar. He will have to eventually. Partially because I don't want another assault on the company; one was enough." Pritchard basically repeated what everyone else had said so far.

"Well, then I guess I will talk to Sarif." Cissnei exhaled sharply and headed for the elevator to Sarif's office.


	7. Chapter 7

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

"Hello, Cissnei. What can I do for you?" Sarif greeted her when she walked in the door.

"Zack still wants to go to Midgar to fight Shinra. I just know he is only going to get himself killed. You're the founder and CEO of Sarif Industries; maybe you can convince him not to run off towards certain death." Cissnei pleaded with Sarif.

"You can't really control people like Zack. I tried to convince Jensen to let go of the search for Megan after the assault, but he was relentless; even when he found out that it was an Illuminati assault team that captured her. When you get to the level of augmentation of Zack and Jensen, that person will stop at nothing to seek justice and revenge." David explained.

"I will try to talk to them, but I'm telling you it's pointless. If I couldn't stop Jensen from going after the Illuminati, I won't be able to stop Zack from going after a visible company with a physical address." Sarif offered, but didn't make any promises.

"Zack was never the rational type. I will just have to accept that I may lose him again. I know I don't have the physical strength or the political pull to keep him here." Cissnei sighed as she left Sarif's office.

"Jensen? Could I talk to you? In person?" Sarif called Jensen via infolink.

"About Zack going to fight Shinra. Am I right?" Jensen asked preemptively.

"Yeah, Cissnei wanted- …wait, how did you know?" Sarif was surprised at Jensen's knowledge; usually it was just Pritchard that was this well-informed.

"Yeah, I guess we can talk. I can't really get any sleep anyway with what seems like the whole city talking about Zack." Jensen sighed. Sarif ended the call and went to ask Malik to take him to Jensen's apartment.

"Zack doesn't have your combat experience. Even though this is far from fighting the Illuminati, he is still fighting a big corporation. I really don't want him to get hurt, but I also don't want Shinra to end up with our tech; that's not going to end well for any of us. I'm honestly not asking you to convince him to stay here, I'm asking you to convince him to stay here to train for going to Midgar." Sarif explained his personal concerns.

"I'll see what I can do. Zack is still a wild and strong-willed spirit; he won't stay peacefully, if he stays at all." Jensen warned.

"Just do what you can. I've had enough with the last attack on the company. I don't feel like rolling out the impromptu welcome mat for Shinra too." Sarif said as he walked towards the door.

**** **Zack's POV ******

I woke up in the hospital again; to the same heart monitor tone.

"You're awake. The doctor said you are ready to be released from the hospital. You will be kicking down doors and shooting people before you know it." The nurse from my first hospital visit informed me. She unhooked the heart monitor from me and left to get me some non-hospital clothes.

"Here are some normal clothes: worn by 90 to 95 percent of Detroit. You should blend in better now and not look like a rogue security guard." The nurse said and left me to change. I got dressed and headed out the door. When I got to the entrance of the hospital, I got a call from Sarif.

"Zack, you should talk to Jensen. He's agreed to help you with your fight against Shinra." Sarif informed me; for whatever reason, I didn't trust him. It's still Jensen he's talking about. Jensen went through the same thing so he is not going to deny me justice no matter what anyone says. I thought as I decided to go to Jensen's apartment anyway, despite my distrust of Sarif's call.

"So now he's suddenly on board, huh? Alright, I'll go see what he has to say." I reluctantly accepted his advice. I was looking over my shoulder and around every corner the whole way to Jensen's apartment.  
"Sarif told me you were coming." Jensen half-grumbled in his usual tone when he opened the door.  
"Do they have you trying to convince me to stay now?" I asked cynically.  
"No, because they know what I went through and knew that they would never convince me. They wanted me to convince you to get some combat training before you went to Midgar. They also wanted me to convince you to take people with you." Jensen replied; it sounded like he was tired of always talking about the same thing. It's been all about me, my operation, and Midgar almost the whole week.  
"I've gotten plenty of training while I was at Shinra. I'm ready now." I objected; I was a SOLDIER 1st class, how could I not have enough training?  
"You had training with swords and some weapons. Fighting with augmentations is different." Jensen explained; Zack slightly reminded Jensen of himself when he got to that factory in Highland Park. He saw his attackers and wanted revenge; completely disregarding any consequences that might arise. He didn't want to wait for anything or make any plans, he was out for blood.  
"It can't be that hard to figure out. All that's different now is that I can do more than I ever could before." I snapped back. I saw a box of Typhoon ammo on his coffee table so I grabbed it and started walking towards the door.  
"Hey, stop! You don't know what you're doing!" Jensen warned as he started to chase after me.  
"I don't need anyone now, so you don't have to agree with me!" I announced as I cloaked and ran out of the building.  
"Cissnei! You have to stop Zack! He's taken the Typhoon and is making a run for it! You are the only one with enough pull to have a chance to stop him!" Jensen called her on his infolink. _I've got to leave the city right the hell now. Because if she finds me, I don't want to think about what will unfold_. I hurried to the entrance of the apartment and uncloaked when I left the building. I made past a couple buildings and then got tackled from the side.  
"You don't have to listen to me; if you really want to run off and get yourself killed by being stupid, that is all you. I will not, however, have you run off with experimental military weaponry like it's a toy or a pack of gum. Do you understand me?" Jensen demanded.  
"I wouldn't have to resort to crude house burglar theft if someone would just listen to me." I growled and drew my arm blade. I'm guessing Jensen saw this and threw me away from him. I crashed through the wall of a building and landed on an abandoned couch.  
"Man, we are never gonna have normal TV again thanks to your stupid ass." I heard a voice say.  
"What did he do?" a second voice asked.  
"Let Sander's friend near the helipad." the first voice replied.  
"'he said he'd get us free porn'. Dumbass." the first voice added in a mocking voice. There was a very peculiar smell in the air.  
"Hey, did I just hear a crash? Or am I just imagining shit?" the first voice said.  
"Shut up and hit that. You've been sitting on it for 10 minutes. I'll go check it out" the second voice said. I flipped off the couch and quickly disappeared back into the hole I made in the wall.  
"You draw your blade on me again, and you will land in the ground." Jensen threatened.  
"Zack! Jensen! Oh good you found him!" Cissnei was relieved to see that I haven't left the city yet.  
"Oh, what happened?" she asked when she got closer.  
"Zack pulled a sword on me so I gave him an attitude adjustment." Jensen grumbled.  
"Zack, this needless resistance and violence is not going to help anyone. You have to listen to us. At least to Jensen because he's been through this before." Cissnei pleaded. Before I could say anything, I heard helicopter blades out of nowhere followed by assault rifle fire. I heard several ricochets followed by a scream of pain from Cissnei.  
"Zack, I'll grab Cissnei, you need to go, NOW!" Jensen commanded.  
"Oh hell no I'm not leaving. I will not let them get away with attacking innocents." I growled and took off to scale the building next to us and the helicopter. I got a good running jump and was able to land near the top of the fire escape ladder. I got to the roof of the building and saw the helicopter floating near the edge of it. I ran towards them and jumped into the helicopter; closing the sliding door on my way in.  
"Air command! The target has boarded our aircraft! I repeat, target is on board!" the pilot frantically announced into the radio.  
"Oh don't worry, I won't be for long." I said with a smirk and activated the Typhoon system. As I twisted around, I heard what sounded like the start of hail on a metal roof.  
"Pray that you don't have to use it on human targets." Sarif's voice floated through my head.  
"So this is the 'experimental' weapon Sarif was so protective of? I don't see-" my thoughts were interrupted by a storm of explosions.

**** **Jensen's POV ******  
I saw the helicopter explode violently; burning steel and human remains scattering like shrapnel. _Zack, you idiot! The Typhoon is not for tight, enclosed spaces. No augmentation in the world can save you now. I told you you were just going to get yourself killed if you just rushed into your plan for revenge, but you just didn't listen_.  
"Hold on, Cissnei, you will be alright." I assured her.  
"Sarif, I need an ambulance at my location, right now!" I told Sarif over the infolink. Before I even ended the call, I already heard one on the way.  
"You're going to be fine. Just stay with us." I had to keep her calm; stress would only jeopardize her survival.  
"Bullet wound, but it shouldn't be bad enough to need augmentation." I told the paramedics when they got there.  
"We can hope." one of them replied as they loaded her into the ambulance.  
_If you are alive, Zack, we are going to have a long talk when I see you next._


	8. Chapter 8

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **Cissnei's POV** ****

I woke up in Zack's apartment, but didn't hear anyone moving around. I got up and went to the living room and saw Jensen sitting on the couch, half-watching the news; a bottle of whiskey in hand. _Jensen sitting in Zack's apartment and drinking whiskey, without Zack around; this won't end well._

"Where is Zack?" I asked; I knew I was going to find out sooner or later anyway, so I decided it was better sooner than later.

"Cissnei! You should be resting in bed. Doctor's orders. Also, I don't want you to die as a result of Zack's stubbornness." Jensen reminded me; I felt fine, so I didn't see any reason I shouldn't be walking around.

"I don't know where Zack is. Neither Sarif nor the Detroit Police Department recovered a body. Zack's GPL has gone offline too." Jensen sounded worried; a first for someone usually stoic like him.

"Since you said they never recovered a body that means he might still be alive, right?" I wasn't sure if I was holding out hope or just denying the terrible truth.

"Even though he had the lethal damage variant and used it in a small space, the Typhoon is not strong enough to completely obliterate a human body; let alone the material Zack's skin is made of." Jensen explained. That strangely gave me hope that Zack was still alive.

**** **Jensen's POV** ****

Cissnei hadn't even made it out the door when Sarif called me.  
"Adam! What the hell is going on? Pritchard said one of the outside intellicams picked up what looked like Zack being a suicide bomber. Zack's GPL went dark just a few seconds before I got that call. Have you seen Zack?" Sarif was a mess of concern, confusion, and anger.  
"Yeah. Last I saw him, he jumped into a Shinra helicopter and activated the Typhoon system you gave him; he stole the ammo from my coffee table and then used the cloak to escape." I told him what I witnessed.  
"He activated the Typhoon INSIDE the helicopter? Is he completely insane?" Sarif didn't believe me; I didn't blame him. How could a person even conceive such an idea?  
"I have no idea how, but we have to find him. Get Prichard to scan every possible frequency; they could have just lowered the broadcast frequency like the Tyrants did." Sarif suggested.  
"On my way now, Boss." I didn't even bother to end the call before I called Pritchard; Sarif will end the call himself, I'm sure he's got other people to call.  
"Pritchard, scan-" I started to say but he interrupted me to finish my sentence.  
"Every possible frequency because they could have just lowered it. Got it. What happened, Jensen?" Pritchard sounded strangely concerned.  
"Zack jumped inside of a Shinra helicopter and activated the Typhoon system." I told him even though I knew he wasn't going to believe me.  
"I think you need to get some sleep. You're talking nonsense." he's not even considering the possibility; he's shocked just like Sarif.  
"He stole the ammo off of my coffee table and ran out the door. Start scanning, Pritchard!" I told him and ended the call.

**** **Zack's POV** ****

I woke up in a chair and quickly found out I could not move my arms or legs. M_aybe that was not the best course of action._ I thought as I looked around the room. I hurt all over but I didn't look beat up or anything so whoever it was that picked me up must have treated any injuries I had.  
"Hello again, Zack. You shouldn't have run away. I was going to make you my star experiment; but I found someone else now. You could still be of use to me, however." I heard Hojo's voice.  
"So you went and turned yourself into a machine. Pity it still couldn't help you escape; I was enjoying this game of cat and mouse." his voice was as venomous and sickening as ever.  
"Those are E.M.P. bracers. You're not getting out of here until I am done with my... Experiments." he said when I tried to move.

"You can't do much with augmented parts. Your experiments are mainly flesh and bone." I reminded him.  
"You are going to be providing me with combat data. You will be a gladiator of sorts." Hojo said with a sick smile.  
"I'll be controlling you via remote since I doubt you know what I want done." Hojo always talked down to everyone.  
"Time for a nap. I need to set up your receiver for the remote's signal." Hojo informed me and my vision went black.

When I woke up again, I felt like I was in someone else's body. I was walking but I wasn't consciously thinking about it; I didn't even feel myself moving my legs.  
"Motor functions are excellent. Now we can move on to the fun part." Hojo had a sick excitement about all of his projects. _They will find me eventually_. _They will rescue me._ I thought as I mindlessly fought random monsters against my will for the doctor's amusement that he called science.

*** **Jensen's POV** ***

Although I didn't have the resources that Pritchard did for scanning GPL frequencies, I still did what I could to help. _Why didn't Pritchard ask Sarif for a proximity kill switch? He talked to Zack and he saw Cissnei's concern. I'm sure if he told Sarif about it, we wouldn't be in this mess right now_. I thought as I flipped through some amateur civilian frequencies. Corporations never look into those frequencies, thus making it a good hiding spot. _Wait a minute. The Typhoon has its own tracking system. Why didn't I think of that?_ I immediately called Pritchard.  
"Scan the Experimental frequency. You should know what I'm talking about. I'm not making any guarantees, but that might be where we find him." protocol forbids the use of the actual name over any kind of electronic communication so I had to use something vague. I scanned through a few more frequencies but found nothing. _He just ran off and left me holding the bag. I had to take Cissnei to the hospital, I had to relay the news to everyone, and I now have to look for his tracking signal. He better be in one piece, wherever he is; I will want some choice words with him._ I thought angrily as I drank the last of the whiskey. I turned the TV on to get my mind off things.  
"today, in spor- *static, tuning noises*" the newscaster was interrupted by some sort of outside broadcast.  
"Hello, Adam. How is life in the pro-augmentation world?" Eliza asked; she was the last person I expected to talk to.  
"Eliza. What are you doing here?" was all I could think to ask.  
"That is a silly question, Adam. I am everywhere." she seemed a little more relaxed and maybe even a bit playful; if that's even possible for an A.I.  
"I'm looking for someone who may or may not be alive. I lost contact with them because they decided to be highly reckless." I briefly explained the situation without too many details.  
"The person you are looking for is alive and in fair condition. He is being kept at a Shinra facility posing as an abandoned factory in the slums of Detroit. His name is Zack Fair. Am I correct?" Eliza just blew the mystery wide open like a Typhoon pellet does a sandbag.  
"I would ask how you know all that, but I know better." I sighed. "Nothing escapes Picus News" is what she would have said; you don't have to be a psychic to see that one coming.  
"I have sent the coordinates and blueprints to a Francis Pritchard." she informed me.  
"What's the catch to you giving me all this information?" I asked; I didn't believe for a second that this is all just free information.  
"There is always a catch. Life is a catch." Eliza was being cryptic again.  
"I just want you to answer me one question." she added.  
"What is it?" I decided to play along.  
"Are you happy with the choice you made back on Panchaea?" she asked; I wasn't sure if she was trying to tell me something or if she was genuinely curious.

"I never thought about it. I can't really say one way or the other." I didn't really have the state of mind to think about this right now.

"You don't have to answer right now if you don't have one. Pritchard should be calling you any minute with the information I sent him. You should take that call and go find Zack. We will be in touch." Eliza suggested after a few minutes of mutual silence.

"Detroit Police are still baffled by what caused the helicopter explosion earlier today; the pieces of the helicopter they found did not give them any clues." The TV returned to the normal broadcast. _I turned on the TV to get my mind off of things only to get something even bigger stuck in my mind. O__ne__often__meets his__destiny__on the__road__he__takes to avoid it, I guess. __I thought as I slowly drifted off to sleep._

_"Jensen! I found Zack! He is in an abandoned factory in DRB territory. 'Courtesy of a high-ranking Picus News official'? I'm not going to ask. I suggest you hurry there, though. I thought we were dealing with Shinra, not Picus News." Pritchard sounded very alarmed._

_"Alright. Heading out right now. He better be there, Francis. I'm trading my nap for this." I had to play along and pretend I did not know this was solid information; I would rather keep my connection with Picus News private. I headed to the helipad on the roof of my apartment building and called Malik._

_"Malik, you remember where you picked me up after I disabled that antenna? Can you take me there again? It's important." I asked without giving too many details._

_"Yeah, sure. Give me five minutes to get to your apartments." She answered. It felt like only a few seconds later that I was already in the air, and on the way to the factory.__  
_


	9. Chapter 9

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **Zack's POV ******

I would say I have given up and stopped resisting, but I was never really given the chance to resist in the first place. I was being walked to the arena to fight another one of Hojo's horrors when Hojo started talking to me.

"How long before you are going to do this willingly? I am essentially gathering my combat data if I was in your body. The data means so much more when it is collected from the natural movements of an animal. Or cyborg in your case." He asked me in his usual venomous voice.

"Never! I will never, serve you!" I forced out through a mouth that was not my own. _If you think I will do anything besides drive an arm blade through your face, you are sorely mistaken._ We got to the arena and I was pushed inside; the door closing behind me. I saw a Sephiroth copy constructed before me; at least this was different from the usual monster I fought. _I know he can read my mind. I also know he is not anywhere near skilled in combat to defeat Sephiroth. I will stop thinking completely and see how hard he fails on his own._ The copy lunged at me like a torpedo; Hojo made a very sloppy dodge and I ended up getting hit with Sephiroth's shoulder. As Sephiroth landed, he slashed horizontally; Hojo made a roll backwards only to get hit with the energy shockwave from the slash. _If he's trying to show off his combat skills from watching countless fights, he's failing horribly._ Hojo went on the offensive and I jumped towards Sephiroth. He tossed his sword into the air and disappeared; he reappeared behind me and took out my balance with a powerful leg sweep. On my way down I saw him appear near the ceiling and grab his sword.

"Overconfidence will destroy you." He said before he threw his sword like a harpoon. I just sat there and watched it sail through the air; Hojo seemed to be getting more and more frantic. _This can't be how I die. Not by that freak Hojo in some black ops arena._ The sword shattered into pixels as it made contact with me; or so I thought.

"Simulation aborted." A voice chimed. I slowly army crawled to the door of the arena.

"Damn battery in the remote died. I guess its back to your cell until I go get another one." Hojo cursed as he opened the door. He jerry-rigged a battery that was lying on the table next to the arena observation window to the remote to walk me back to the cell.

"Ha!" I heard his voice echo down the hall, followed by his footsteps.

"The remote is fine. The receiver in you ran out of juice. Maybe I should just connect it to your energy source." Hojo said with a sick smile when he came into the room and stopped a couple feet in front of the chair I was sitting in.

"Yes, I think I will do that. I think I will make you really work for the opportunity to-" I heard a faint metallic sound - like a large piece of gravel hitting the underside of a car - when Hojo said "work" and then the rest of his sentence past to was cut off by an explosion which covered me in his blood and bone fragments; my ears were ringing because the explosion was only a couple feet away from me.

"Zack! Get off your ass and let's go!" I heard Jensen's voice.

"Warning! Intruder detected!" A concerned voice chimed right after Jensen almost as if on cue.

"I… am… bugged… Back… of… neck…" I forced out; Hojo had inhibited my speech because I kept breaking his concentration. Jensen walked behind me and pulled something off of the back of my neck. I felt a sting, but I also felt that I could move my arms and legs again.

"We got to go before the rest of the guards show up!" Jensen pulled me off the chair and we took off running. We only turned down two halls before Jensen said he found an exit. We turned down a hallway that didn't have a door at the end; I started wondering if there was another hallway we were going down or if there was a room in this hallway with an outside window.

"I don't see an exit here." I said in a confused tone.

"We are approaching an outside wall. Now do you see where the exit is?" Jensen informed me with a bit of sarcasm in his voice. It finally clicked in my head; he was going to break through the wall. Jensen shoulder-charged the wall and plowed through it like a tank. As I followed Jensen outside, I saw a radio tower and a helicopter landing near it.  
"Up that ladder to the helipad, on the double!" Jensen directed.  
"He's getting away!" I heard a Shinra guard behind me shout. I heard a burst of gunfire from behind me, followed by ricochets; that was enough to scare me into running faster and actually reach the helipad before Jensen.  
"Get us out of here, now!" Jensen directed as soon as both of us got into the helicopter.  
"Wow that was close." I breathed a sigh of relief.  
"I wouldn't have had to do this in the first place if you would have listened for once." Jensen growled. I suddenly remembered Cissnei and her brief run-in with Shinra.  
"How is Cissnei? Will she be alright?" I asked; I know I was stubborn but at least I didn't stay there after he took my control bug off. There was an uneasy silence and then Jensen let out a heavy sigh.  
"She... She didn't make it. The bullet damaged a vital organ and a major artery. There was nothing we could do." Jensen sounded very uncomfortable talking about this.  
"They pulled me out of the grave and they couldn't save a simple gunshot victim? I don't believe that." I said dismissively.  
"Her body strongly rejected any augmentation we tried to put in to save her." Jensen explained.  
"I'm sorry, Zack." Jensen sounded very uncomfortable so I decided not to ask anymore questions. The rest of the helicopter ride was in an uneasy silence. When we got back to Sarif HQ, I headed off towards my apartment but I was stopped at the entrance.

"You know that is the first place they are going to look, right? They found you there once. I wouldn't go back there again. Also, we got to look you over for any kind of tracking devices or GPLs. We have to make sure they didn't bug you with anything that could lead them right to you; and Sarif." Pritchard explained. He took me to his office and scanned me with several hand-helds that looked like the one Hojo used to control me; luckily, I didn't have anything.

"There is an unused office on the other side of this floor. I'm sure Sarif will let you stay there until things cool off." Pritchard suggested.

"Thank you. I needed a quiet place to just get away from everything for a while." I mumbled as I slowly walked off. On the way to my "new home", I met Reno.

"Hey, what's wrong? Are you still down about getting augmented? Honestly, I'm kind of jealous. You will be able to do more than I ever will be with your new strength." Reno must have somehow not heard the news; or he was purposefully avoiding it because I'm sure it hit him pretty hard too.

"I couldn't do the one thing I should have been focused on the most; protecting Cissnei. I was being selfish and didn't listen to anyone." I sighed.

"It was Shinra that attacked her, not you. You shouldn't blame yourself for things that happened beyond your control." Reno was trying to reason with me, but I knew what happened was fully in my control; I just chose not to control it.

"I'm going to go take a nap. I need to take a break from everything." I mumbled.

"Alright, I'll see you around then. "Reno said as he walked off to wherever he was heading originally. When I got to the office, I saw that it was pretty nicely furnished; like someone had just recently been working here and then left a few days ago. Even the computer was still on. I sat down in the chair and noticed a side drawer was open on the right side of the table. I looked inside and saw what looked like a pack of cigarettes; complete with what looked like home rolled cigarettes. _Might as well try it; most everyone I know that smokes says it relieves stress. _I thought as I took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it with the lighter that was also inside the pack. It was not until I had finished smoking the second one that I realized the smell that now filled the room was the same peculiar smell I noticed in the MCB hideout. The lights outside the office seemed brighter and a little blurry, the computer fan suddenly got louder, and people walking by the office seemed to walk slower. My mind was completely quiet. _I don't know what this is, but I love it. I can finally relax._ I thought as I lied back in my chair.

"Hello, Zack." I heard a voice come from the computer. I looked at the computer and saw a face surrounded by running pixels. _Am I seeing things? _I could have sworn that face was not there on the monitor when I came in.

"Who are you?" I asked; I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was real or not, but I was going to find out.

"Who I am is irrelevant. It is who _you_ are that is important. You were such a caring and loving person before your operation. You should go pay your respects to Cissnei. You may not have had the chance to say goodbye to her, but at least you might gain a sense of closure." The face answered.

"How do you know Cissnei? How do you know my name?" I was getting more and more confused by the minute.

"I do not have the capacity to know anything. I do not know information, I _am_ information." The face was being very vague with its answers.

"Why are you talking in riddles? I don't understand what you're saying." I asked; was this a game or am I just imagining everything right now?

"When speaking of the dead, it is best to remain cryptic." The face answered. I blinked and rubbed my eyes; the face was gone when I looked at the screen again.


	10. Chapter 10

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

I got up from my chair to take a walk and get some fresh air, but I felt increasingly heavy and my vision was rapidly going dark. I felt myself lose feeling in my legs and collapse on the floor; I lost consciousness after that.

When I woke up, I decided take the possible hallucination's advice. I got up and headed towards the entrance. On the way there, Tseng called me and told me where to find Cissnei.

"Don't forget to visit First Church of Detroit to pay your respects to Cissnei. I know you two were starting to be more than… professional acquaintances." Tseng always had a way with words. _Going to church to meet a girl; those were the days._ I thought with a sigh. It took me a while to walk to church, but I finally got there; it looked kind of like the church in Sector 5 of Midgar. _Well, here it is; going to pay my respects. I just hope I have a strong enough mental composure to see Cissnei's once bright and cheerful presence as a cold, lifeless body in a casket._ I tried not to think about it, but I just kept seeing it in my mind. I pushed the door open and went inside. _I don't see anyone here. What's going on? Tseng told me to come here. I know he would mess around about someone's death._ I thought as I walked to the altar.

"Zack… over here…" I heard a familiar voice behind me, but I didn't believe I was hearing it. I turned around and saw Cissnei standing near the door. _Jeez, what was in those cigarettes? First the face in the computer, now voices and actual people._ I thought as I slowly walked towards "Cissnei".

"I'm sorry I had to lie to you, but I figured that was the only way you would actually listen to someone; I've tried everything else and it was like you didn't even notice." Cissnei explained the reason for her lying about her condition.

"No, don't apologize. I'm glad your death was just a lie." I smiled as I hugged her tightly; she may work for Shinra indirectly, but I didn't care. I knew that I would not survive mentally if I lost her.

"Zack, I…" Cissnei gasped; I probably caught her off guard by hugging her. Since she was raised inside Shinra, and worked for the Turks most of her life, she probably didn't have much of anything outside professional relationships with people.

"You still care about me, even after I've tried to take you into Shinra custody; even after I used assault materia on you. What do you see in me that makes you care so much?" Cissnei asked me.

"You tried because it was your job, but ultimately you let me go. Twice. Then you even went against Shinra and tried to find me before they did. You have a good heart, even if you are working for someone who doesn't." I explained; I lost Aeris, but I damn sure wasn't about to lose Cissnei. I am going to take things slow from now on. I've already been captured by Shinra once; I don't want to be careless and let it happen again.

"I will talk to Jensen about that training he was offering. I will learn how to protect you better." I assured her. I called Jensen as I walked back to Sarif HQ.

"I think I'm ready for-" I started but was interrupted by very angry Jensen.

"What the fuck were you doing, running off like that?" Jensen growled.

"I don't know. I lost my head for a minute. I can't thank you enough for coming to save me." I apologized; I couldn't explain what happened even if I tried.

"You've cost everyone a lot of mental health. You went completely dark after that helicopter exploded. By the way, how did you survive the blast of the Typhoon at that kind of close range?" Jensen asked; I'm sure he wasn't the only person that was curious about how I pulled that off.

"I'll tell you when I get up there." I didn't want to give any details over the phone because I didn't know who else could be listening.

"So what kind of training did you have in mind?" I asked Jensen when I got to Sarif's office.

"Mainly mental conditioning. But first you've got to tell me how you escaped that helicopter without any serious injuries." Jensen was not letting go of the mystery of my survival.

"Right when I saw one of the Typhoon bullets, I remembered the demo video; I started running maybe a second before they started exploding. I wasn't in the middle of the explosion but I was still close enough to take moderate damage. I landed in the middle of four scorpion bots and they all used some sort of E.M.P. that nullified my shielding from such effects." I explained the mystery.

"Honestly, I lied about the training. The key to getting revenge on Shinra is patience. You can't just lash out like you did with the helicopter. If you have the chance, assess the situation and make a decision on whether or not it's realistic for you to attack or stay hidden. The cloaking system you have can also be used to escape in case you misjudge the situation or things change suddenly. Don't depend on it, but use it when you need to. Just like Sarif said, basically all of your augmentations are for survival; the Typhoon is the only purely offensive augmentation. I made up the part about training because I needed to keep you here while Tseng called in a few favors. I think Tseng is ready to see you now. He is waiting for you in your office." Whether Jensen held up his end of "I'll give you the training you asked about if you tell me how you survived" or not could be argued from either side; I felt bad that I made them come up with extra schemes just to get me to listen.

"Go talk to Pritchard; he will brief you on your next mission." Tseng was back to his old Shinra self, but he was on my side this time. I went to Pritchard's office because I knew from the videos that I saw on Jensen's computer that he's going to be one of the key people supporting me on this mission.  
"If it isn't the Martyr of Midgar, fresh from the suicide fields." Pritchard said with a smirk.  
"You will first be infiltrating and dismantling the factory we pulled you out of. Sarif doesn't like them being that close, and frankly neither do I. I have sent all the blueprints and maps you would need to your infolink. I doubt there will be anything worth saving in that facility so you can go wild if you want. Just don't get carried away; literally or figuratively." Pritchard gave me the basics of the mission.  
"it should be pretty easy since all they have there is foot soldiers and a few small sentry bots; but-" Pritchard didn't get to finish because I completed his sentence with what Sephiroth would say.  
"Overconfidence will destroy me. Yeah I know." thanks to Sephiroth, that has almost become the motto of part of my brain.  
"Well, look at you being rational." Pritchard chuckled.

"Being rational will keep me alive longer." I smiled.  
"Malik will take you to your point of entry. She is waiting for you on the helipad." Pritchard informed me.  
"Well, wish me luck." I said as I headed off to the helipad.  
"This brings back memories" Malik smiled as I climbed into the helicopter.  
"Same for me.'in case we get shot down over the ghetto, I don't know you, and you don't speak English.' great first ride in a helicopter after getting out of the hospital." I teased.  
"Well, I was joking last time. This time it's a serious concern. Just this time, bail on impact should it happen." Malik sounded very serious.  
"What about you?" I asked; she can't be expecting me to just leave her.  
"I'll be fine. I've got experience." she said plainly. We got to the entry point without any problems; I was still worried the whole way.  
"Thank you for the lift. Hopefully I will be calling you for extraction." I said before I jumped out of the helicopter. When I landed on the roof of a nearby building, I saw the hole Jensen made for us to escape through. _They will probably be expecting someone to try and get in through that hole. Although it would be even harder to get in after making a new hole_. I thought as I looked around the facility from the roof. W_ait a minute, I've got smart vision. I can see exactly who is where._ I remembered that my vision vastly exceeded that of my human life. I saw one guard near the hole, while everyone else was either in the middle or back of the facility. I snuck up to the side of the whole where the guard was standing; I had to take care of him, but quietly. I quickly reached around the corner and pulled him out of the facility.  
"Intru-" the guard yelped before I hit him in the stomach and threw him over my shoulder; I didn't really look where I threw him so he ended up landing on an electrical transformer. The inside of the facility went dark for a few seconds, and then the emergency lights came on.  
W_ell, as good a time as ever._ I thought as I thought as I walked in through the hole.


	11. Chapter 11

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

It almost seemed brighter inside than it did outside, but then I realized it was just my night vision. I looked around with my smart vision but didn't see anyone; there must be a meeting zone they go to for power outages, like most places have for tornadoes. I looked down both ways of the hall at the end of the corridor, and noticed they still haven't cleaned up the broken wall where Jensen used his Typhoon on 3 guards; miraculously their weapons were still intact. I picked up a pistol and an assault rifle with about half of a clip left. Guns were a good weapon for when the situation didn't warrant materia use but you couldn't reach the target by hand. I walked to where my cell was and blasted the restraining chair with lightning. _Try to make me a puppet again, I dare you_. I thought as I kept walking. I looked around with my smart vision again and this time saw where everyone was hiding. It was a room behind a "restricted area" door; with no electricity to power the lock, it was hardly restricted. I slid open the door and walked inside. It looked like a storage area; barrels and boxes with various warning labels -including flammable and explosive- were everywhere. I heard a gasp come from near a particularly large stockpile of such barrels, and then a couple whispers; after which someone started laughing.  
"It's ok guys, it's just Hojo messing around with the test subject, trying to scare us." one of the scientists called out to the rest of the group.  
"we are safe as long as-" his assumption was interrupted by 5 gunshots followed by several screams of fear.  
"We are safe as long as what? As long as I am under Hojo's control bug program?" I said sarcastically.  
"Ok, Hojo, that's not funny! That guy was a dick anyway, but you didn't have to kill him right here on the floor." one of the other scientists called out to "Hojo".  
"The good doctor has a lot of work to do and is having trouble focusing on any one project right now. You could say he is... All over the place... YEEEAAAHH!" I wasn't completely lying; he really was all over the place. Part of him even left with Jensen and I.  
"who are you to talk about Hojo like that? You're not even fit to be his-" I spent my last 3 rounds in the pistol.  
"Anyone else feel like being a martyr for a dead sociopath?" I growled.  
"Watch out guys, we are dealing with a badass over here." one of the scientists scoffed.  
"You wouldn't even be out of your cage if it wasn't for this power outage." he added.  
"Actually, I "got out of my cage" while the power was on." I corrected him.  
"Well then the remote batteries are probably dead. Enjoy this false freedom until Hojo replaces the batteries." he scoffed.  
"Hojo is dead. So is the control bug. You're next." I told him before I snapped his neck.  
"You just killed three people! Do you even feel their blood on your hands?" the remaining scientist protested.  
"You've tortured thousands of people for the sake of Mako experimentation. You've shattered the lives of hundreds of families. You've caused multiple depression-related suicides. Suddenly, me killing four people seems so small, doesn't it?" I made him look at the big picture.  
"Four? I only see three." he said in a confused voice.  
"Oh, you will see four when you get to Hell." I told him as I walked towards the door.  
"Tell Hojo I said 'fuck you'." I said sarcastically and shot one of the barrels next to the remaining scientist. The entire room instantly became engulfed in flames. I shut the door and went on to the next room. The next door was plain with a small window and no important-sounding signs like "restricted area" or "authorized personnel only". I went inside and heard a frantic voice.  
"No! What are you going to do now? I don't want sahagin arms!" the voice protested.  
"Relax; I don't even have the skill or training to give you sahagin arms. I pried open the shackles on the operating table and unfastened the restraining belt.  
"Oh, thank you so much! But how will I get out of here?" it was some random civilian they picked up; probably for some petty crime and used that as their excuse to take him.  
" go left out of this room, turn right at the burning door, and then take the first corridor on your left." I gave him exit directions with a bit of humor; he ran off like a madman.  
"Hey- Security! We have a runaway!" I heard a voice from outside the room, followed by running footsteps. I looked outside and saw a guard chasing the guy I just let free.  
"Stop or-" he shouted before he tumbled to a stop on the floor.  
"Or _I'll_ shoot. At least my target was armed." I finished the late guard's sentence. The scientist looked at me in shock.  
" what? You work here and never seen anyone die before? I'm sure you've killed plenty of people yourself; just maybe not with a gun." I scoffed at his hypocritical reaction.  
"You just shot him in the back." the scientist said with fear.  
"Yeah, would you like me to shoot you in the front?" I asked sarcastically. He yelped and ran off down the hallway. I kept walking down the hall until I came up to what looked like a bank vault. _Oh, there has to be something good in here._ I thought as I pulled the door open. When I walked inside, I could not believe my eyes. There was Sephiroth's body, just lying on the operating table. It was badly beaten, but still mostly intact. I saw something shining in the corner, the way chrome reflects a flashlight beam, and was filled with even more disbelief. _Is that Sephiroth's sword?_ I thought before I suddenly realized what the light was from. _Tactical flashlight! Oh shit! Get the fuck outta here!_ I dove to the side fractions of a second before several assault rifle shots shattered the silence of the lab.  
"Shots fired but no contact, I repeat, no contact. Target has gone dark." a Shinra soldier barked into his radio. I activated my cloak and snuck over to the corner with the sword.  
"Here is your contact, asshole." I uncloaked and ran him through. _This does feel heavier than the buster sword, but with my arm augmentations I don't think that's going to be a problem. I could get used to this._ I thought as I admired the legendary blade; I couldn't believe I was actually holding the legendary Shinra hero's blade. _I wonder._ I focused on my lightning materia and made a slash with Sephiroth's sword; a lightning whip shot out of the sword and left scorch marks on the floor and walls. _It's going to be hard not to think I'm invincible with powers like this._ I didn't have much time to revel in my newfound power, as the rest of the guards in the complex were preparing to storm the lab I was in. They threw in a grenade but I was lucky enough to catch it just right with the sword and knock it back into the hallway. I heard panicked shouts followed by an explosion; followed by fewer panicked shouts.

"We have several men down! Requesting back-up immediately!" one of the soldiers frantically spoke into their radio. I used my cloak to leave Sephiroth's temporary resting place undetected by the soldiers in the hall. I saw an open door up ahead and went to investigate; this was the first and only open door I've seen in the whole complex so far. I walked in and was instantly filled with rage and disbelief. Hojo was walking around, typing stuff on computers, and talking to himself. I saw him get blown to a million pieces right in front of my eyes; and into them if I hadn't closed them as fast as I did. There was no augmentation in the world that could bring you back from being turned into a sloppy paint job.

"I would really like to know how you managed to come back from being all over the floor and restraining chair." I asked him; I was sickened even more when he turned around.

"That does not concern you. You are not paid to think, you are just paid to protect those that think for you." a recording of Hojo's venomous voice came from what looked like Hojo after a night at the bar.

"I see someone forgot to lock your cage. I'll make sure to-" I sliced off the top half of the robotic Hojo with Sephiroth's sword. He actually made a robotic clone of himself; with recordings of him talking. _Just one of him walking around and spouting venom wasn't enough; he had to make another one. This is just another reason why-_ my mental grumbling was interrupted by a voice coming from the door.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" the voice demanded; I looked up only to see it coming from a Shinra soldier. _ I thought it was someone important; they talked differently from the usual Shinra soldiers, at least._ I had nothing to say to any Shinra soldier so I concentrated on my fire materia and shot at the soul-dead humanoid in blue; said humanoid drew a staff out of nowhere and deflected the shot like it was a beach ball.


	12. Chapter 12

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

_Something tells me things are about to go south real fast. _I thought as I just stood there; shocked by what I just witnessed.

"Zack! Everyone told me you were dead. Even your official status with the company is listed as "Killed in Action". Yet here you are, running rampant through a Shinra installation. _My _Shinra installation. I really want to know how you get classified as a dead man without actually dying; before I make it a truthful announcement." The voice sounded slightly familiar, but I couldn't place it; it was too cold and angry.

"How do you know my name?" I asked; none of the other Shinra soldiers new my name. _This just keeps getting better and better. _I mentally grumbled; even with a plan I am getting into deep shit.

"I am SOLDIER 1st Class Aerith Gainsborough." the voice said; there was no way that was Aerith. She was freaked out by the whole company; even my Mako eyes gave her the creeps. She took off her helmet and what I saw almost knocked me off my feet. It _was _Aerith; but she had the cold look of an assassin on her face. I was now fully paralyzed with shock. My mind was screaming.

"After you had ignored my letters for four years, I got tired of sitting around the church and asked Tseng if I could join SOLDIER. Here I am now, 1st class and a master of Materia. What have you done except for vandalize your former employer?" Aerith recapped her path to power.

"Well, Sephiroth went completely cuckoo for coco puffs at the Nibelheim reactor and burned the whole town to the ground; mysteriously it was rebuilt in 12 hours. Then I fought Genesis as some sort of giant demon...thing. I was on my way to anywhere that I could start a new life that wasn't controlled by Shinra. I got ambushed and was just about dead when I got picked up. I woke up and they told me I had my life back again; that was a lie." I explained that I haven't been just sitting on my ass all this time.

"You should have stayed dead." Aerith said as she lunged towards me with her staff raised. _I can't do this. I can't fight her. Not now. I was not expecting this at all. _Her offense was basically the best defense. There was no opportunity for me to even try to go on the offensive. I cloaked and ran out of the room into the hallway; I stayed cloaked until I got to the exit hallway.

"I have never seen you run from a fight before." Aerith said as soon as I uncloaked.

"How did you find me?" I asked; I was beginning to wonder if I forgot to cloak when I ran out of the room.

"I heard your footsteps and followed them. Your invisibility doesn't mask the noise you make while moving." Aerith informed me. _Well, escaping is out. How am I going to fight her? _I thought as I just stood there, staring at Aerith.

"So are you just going to come quietly then?" Aerith asked me; even though she knew the answer.

"I can't fight you, but I damn sure won't go quietly." I could not bring myself to raise any kind of weapon against her; it wasn't even about honor, I just couldn't do it because part of me still saw the cheerful and innocent Aerith I once knew.

"Come on and fight me!" she challenged as she hit me with a deadly right cross; if I had not been augmented, it would have been over right there.

"At least defend yourself!" she demanded. She drew back her staff so I jumped back in anticipation; she threw a fireball with her free hand, instead.

I dove left but still felt the heat trail of the fireball pass by me.

"You could have refused the mission. I know Kunsel told you that you had the authority to refuse orders as a 1st; it may be off the record, but it is still fully honored. You chose to go, and you let me believe that you were dead. After four years of sitting around, I got tired of it and asked Tseng if I could join Shinra. When I found out what they were doing to new recruits, I wanted to run; but I quickly realized I didn't have anywhere _to _run. I had no choice but to suffer through all of the Mako experiments Hojo put me through. By the end of my time as a lowly recruit, I had grown to seriously hate Hojo and started plotting a way to get rid of him; permanently. I guess I should thank you for doing that for me, even though I wanted the satisfaction of it for myself. I also can't complain about the effects of the experiments; they have made all of my materia stronger than they ever were before." Aerith sounded like she was still mad about the Nibelheim mission; and everything that happened afterward.

"It was going fine until Genesis showed up and started talking about monsters. That's when Sephiroth went cuckoo for coco puffs." I explained.

"You could have stopped him. You are a 1st. You are supposed to know what is vital to the mission, and what should be left out because of irrelevance. You could have stopped Genesis. He was only a 2nd." Aerith almost reminded me of Angeal; the way she talked about the duties of a 1st.

"Hey, it was not all my fault. I didn't even know Genesis was there. He ambushed me and then started talking to Sephiroth." I protested.

"You faked your death to try to excuse your ignoring my letters!" Aerith snapped accusingly. This suddenly caused me to burn with rage; I charged at her with a horizontal slash.

"Yes! Bring your rage to bear!" she encouraged as she parried me effortlessly.

"Your eyes... I... I'm sorry you had to go through that..." I apologized; I felt like if I had come back sooner, we could have ran away together somewhere; or at least I would help her get away from Shinra.

"Oh, don't worry about it. Tseng always told me I was an Ancient, but I didn't believe him until now." Aerith said lightly; I didn't notice that she readied a massive lightning bolt until it was too late. I was knocked back into the building and through a couple walls; I ended up in the same room where we met originally. _I can't keep this up forever. It's getting really close to "fight back or die." I am not going to let everyone's efforts go to waste by just letting someone kill me. _I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I decided I was going to start fighting back.

"Are you going to fight back or are you going to die like a coward?" Aerith issued another challenge.

I focused every thought in my mind on Genesis and slashed blindly; a whip of lightning came out of my sword but was devoured by Aerith's staff the moment it made contact with it.

"There is that untapped potential! So you _can _fight!" Aerith was relentlessly pushing me to fight her.

"Damn it, Aerith! Why are you making me do this?" I shouted in frustration; this was like Cissnei on the abandoned beach all over again. _You have to fight. You have no real choice. The Aerith you knew is gone. You either fight or die._ Something in my mind finally snapped; the stress of this unfair choice had finally eaten away at whatever was still holding me back. I focused on the walls and stomped on the ground; the room trembled but still held together. I jumped as high as I could and curled up into a ball; I came down like a meteor, with the walls collapsing around me from the impact.

"You can't bury all of your problems, Zack." Aerith taunted. I looked up and saw her neatly surrounded by rubble.

"I never asked for this! But I've finally given into the rage you've spawned in me. Are you happy?" I growled as charged towards her; slashing wildly. Fire, ice, and lightning were flying everywhere as if it was the end of the world. I heard a spell make contact, followed by a piercing clash of steel against steel. I heard Aerith's staff land behind me.

"Checkmate." I jeered as I drew back for the final slash. Aerith held out her hand as if to say "stop"; as if I was going to stop after coming this far. _I can't move. What just happened? _I suddenly realized that I could not move; not even my head.

"Trollmate." Aerith said with a smirk.

"I have the target in custody. Ready for delivery and extraction. Be advised, target is catastrophically dangerous if not restrained." She announced into her radio.

"Overconfidence will destroy you." Aerith said as she picked up her staff.

"Where did you hear that from?" I asked; I haven't even met her at the time that Sephiroth told me that, and then he was gone before she had joined Shinra. I was really curious where she picked that up.

"Kunsel. He told me that that one and 'embrace your dreams' were your most used phrases." She explained. I heard helicopter blades approaching, followed by the squeak of landing gear about a minute later. A small group of soldiers got out and started walking towards me.

"Be careful with him; if we play our cards right, he could be a very powerful addition to our team." Aerith instructed; I don't know where she got the idea that I would ever work for Shinra again.


	13. Chapter 13

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **Jensen's POV ******

I was about to call Pritchard to ask if he has heard anything from Zack, when I get a call from Sarif.

"Adam, Zack's GPL went dark again. Just like last time. You think he's in trouble?" Sarif asked me; _an always-on GPL that has its own power source goes dark and you ask me "Is he in trouble?" _ I thought as I shook my head at his question.

"We at least know where he is this time. Let's be in the air in 5." I suggested to Sarif and left for the helipad. It didn't take long for Malik to get to my apartment and land; I think she's come here so many times she is starting to come here by force of habit even when going somewhere else. I barely got in the door when she had already gotten off the ground. It felt like I closed the door only a few seconds ago when Malik announced that we were already at the mission site.

"Lead foot today, Malik?" I asked jokingly.

"It was pretty serious the last time a GPL went dark, so I assumed this was the same level if not more serious." She was right; this was possibly more serious than last time.

"That whole section of the building has collapsed. He really indulged himself, I see." Sarif commented on the massive pile of rubble that used to be part of the factory. I scanned the facility with smart vision but I didn't see anyone; anyone living anyway.

"No sign of Zack. What should we do now?" I asked Sarif.

"Call Pritchard. See if he's heard anything from Zack." He suggested as he pulled his phone out to call someone.

"Pritchard, I need you to scan all possible GPL frequencies." I made sure to make it sound urgent so it would get done in the span of the phone call.

"Did Zack get stuck in an air duct on his mission for revenge?" Pritchard re-wrote his first words to me when I first met him.

"Now, Pritchard." I said in an almost demanding tone; as much as I appreciated the humor, this was pretty serious and needed to be resolved as soon as possible. There was silence for about half an hour; then Pritchard finally spoke again.

"I've scanned all possible frequencies at least 5 times and came up with nothing. Maybe you could contact your 'high-ranking Picus News official again?" Pritchard said jokingly.

"It doesn't exactly work like that. We are just going to have to hope Zack can solve the problem himself and contact us when he can. We don't really have anything else we can do." I pointed out what no one wanted to hear.

"Who's going to tell Cissnei, besides not me?" Sarif asked a seemingly rhetorical question.

"Since you are basically forcing me to do it, I guess I will." I sighed. Malik flew me back to my apartment so I could deliver the news. _She is not going to take this lightly, so I will have to be prepared for possible irrational behavior. _I thought as I walked to Cissnei's apartment.

"Oh. Hi, Jensen. I wasn't really expecting to see you outside of the office." She seemed surprised to see me when she opened the door.

"Zack's GPL went dark. We have run out of things we can do to find him." I decided to just be straight with her; beating around the bush will get us nowhere.

"I can't lose him again! I just can't! He's already been captured by Shinra once." Cissnei took it a little better than I thought.

"He was going to the Detroit Shinra factory. Be prepared for him being possibly captured again." I told her about his last mission.

"No! Promise me you will find him! I refuse to believe that he would let himself get captured again!" Cissnei's voice breaking told me I spoke too soon.

"I'm sorry, Cissnei. We've done all we can." I apologized; I felt bad that I couldn't do more, but at the same time I knew that there was nothing else I _could _do. I stayed with Cissnei until she fell asleep, then I went home. I turned on my TV just to have some background noise, and went to get a drink. I came back and sat on the couch with a bottle of my usual. I kept hoping the screen would fuzz out and Eliza would appear and at least tell me that Zack is alright aside from some technical trouble. Or something. It was the not knowing anything and not being able to find out anything that was driving me nuts. What if Zack lost his head again and did something stupid? What if Shinra somehow got the drop on him? I slowly slipped fell asleep to my mind coming up with a dozen scenarios per couple seconds.

**** **Cissnei's POV ******

I woke up alone to reminiscent thoughts of Zack when he still worked for Shinra and I worked for the Turks. _There must be something else they can do. We can't just be forced to sit here and wait for information. I'm going to go talk to Pritchard._ I changed my slept-in clothes and went to Pritchard's office.

"Hi, do you have a minute?" I asked him; he was facing away from the door so I wasn't sure if he was busy or not.

"Since I'm not keeping private-inspector surveillance on Zack, I could spare a few. What do you need?" Pritchard joked.

"Are you sure there is nothing you can do to try to find Zack?" I refused to believe that all we could do is wait.

"We have done all we can. I don't know what else we can do." Pritchard shrugged.

"Please! There must be something else. We can't be expected to just sit here and wait. I'll go mad." I felt like I was starting to already.

"I can try one more thing, but I'm not giving any guarantees. I will try to ping the Typhoon's tracking system." Pritchard sighed; I could tell he already knew it wasn't going to work but he was going to do it anyway just to calm me down. He hit some buttons on a keypad and typed in some credentials; at least he was trying. He stared at his computer screen for a few minutes and then let out a heavy sigh.

"The ping has timed out. I'm sorry. That was the absolute last thing I can think of that we can do. All we can do now is wait." Pritchard knew that's not what I wanted to hear, but he also knew I wanted the truth.

**** **Zack's POV ******

I woke up to two guards standing outside my cell talking about me.

"I'm kind of curious just what kind of dangerous this new subject is. I've been working for SOLDIER for close to 20 years and I've never heard any subject referred to as 'catastrophically dangerous'. Do you want to see if we can take him to the testing bunker and see what they are talking about for yourself?" one of them said.

"I don't know. I've learned it's best not to question or 'see for yourself' anything that a 1st deems as dangerous; I learned that the hard way." The second one warned.

"You've been such a killjoy since that happened. We have better security protocols now. Better everything. Come on. You haven't had a day off in almost two months. This will be like a little paid vacation." The first guard tried to persuade him.

"Alright, I guess. I do need a break. You're right." The second one agreed and they both walked off. They came back a few minutes later and strapped me into some sort of upright stretcher on wheels. They wheeled me to a vault-style door. One guy opened it and the other lead me inside. I heard the door close and lock behind me. Strangely, I felt lighter in this room; like I could breathe easier. I looked around and saw a large chest in the corner of the room. I opened the chest and what I saw gave me a rush of energy; it was all of my materia and Sephiroth's sword. I picked it all up and started looking for any kind of observation window; sadly I didn't see any. I heard a buzzer go off and then two sides of the room open up; at least 10 sahagin came out of each side. They all hissed and started walking towards me. I stomped the ground and made most of them stagger. Two heavy sword strokes later, most of them were twitching on the floor; lightning dancing all over their bodies. The last two jumped into the air to try and attack me from above. I met them halfway and impaled both on my sword. One of the guards must have accidentally hit the microphone key for the intercom, because I suddenly heard talking.

"Holy shit, did you see that? He just took out all 20 in less than a minute." The first guard sounded shocked.

"Meh, that's above average yes, but it's nothing you will remember a couple days from now." The second guard said dismissively.

"Alright, how's this, smartass?" the first guard snapped and hit some keys.

"Hey, you should get authorization for that first. Hojo spent countless hours and manpower to improve and perfect that project." The second guard suggested.

"Oh, I'm sorry; the fuck I would give you right now must have fallen out of my pocket on the way to get the first authorization." The first guard said sarcastically and loudly hit a button; most likely the release key. The back wall opened up and I almost couldn't believe what I saw. Genesis was standing right in front of me, but with no signs of degradation. I would have thought Hojo would be too proud to even touch any of Hollander's work.

"The original Genesis was already stronger than most of the people here, with the obvious exception of Sephiroth. This version is vastly superior because it has been designed by a _real_ scientist and not that pissy wannabe that went rogue because he lost to someone of superior skill." The first guard boasted.

"Kill him, Genesis!" he shouted into the microphone. Genesis charged at me with his sword raised, but I dodged his advance like he was moving in slow motion. He threw a cluster of fireballs but I didn't even have to move for most of them to miss me; he closed his palm into a fist and that told me there was more to the trick. I looked behind me and the fireballs had turned around and were making another run at me. I cloaked briefly and rolled to the side; the fireballs ended up hitting Genesis instead. He pulled out what looked like a novelty revolver with a blade on the bottom of the barrel and spun the chamber.

"Watch out guys, we're dealing with a badass over here." I taunted. He charged at me again in the same manner as last time; I dodged his sword in the same manner as last time. He landed on his feet and then I heard two gunshots, followed by what felt like two of Aerith's staff jabs to my stomach. There was now also a bullet hole in Genesis's jacket.

"Ha! I told you we would see something worthwhile if we pulled him out; and you were going on about "authorization" and "oh he spent countless hours". Hours well spent is all I see." The first guard boasted again. I threw a lightning bolt at Genesis but he actually dodged it and charged at me again. I stood my ground this time and parried his attack; I twisted the sword out of his hand using my sword and sent it gracefully sailing to the other end of the room. He aimed his gun at me again but I was able to turn it away from me at the last second; I was not expecting it so it was a little bit of an adjustment to keep track of someone using multiple weapons at the same time. I decided to be fair and tossed my sword in the same corner; his gun was not really much of a threat as long as I kept an eye out for it.

"This guy is nuts! He just tossed his sword in the corner. He's unarmed now while Genesis still has a gun. I'm not sure if this guy is crazy or just stupid!" The first guard exclaimed. I jumped back and Genesis followed; thrusting his gun forward like a spear. I grabbed the top of the barrel and elbowed him in the head, following with a knee kick to the stomach to loosen his grip on the gun. I pulled the gun out of his hand and grabbed the handle with my free hand. I shot hit twice and he collapsed to one knee.

"Show's over, you can get back to work." I shouted so whatever listening device was in the room could hear me; I knew they had to have a way to hear what was going on. I threw the gun like a massive shuriken; Genesis put his hand up as if to catch it, but it cut through his hand and split his head.

"Shit! Ok, you were right. We should have never messed with this guy to see his true danger potential. I am sorry I didn't listen. How do we get this guy back under control now?" the first guard asked frantically.

"The same way we do every other defiant subject." The second guard answered calmly and hit a button. The back part of the floor opened up and 6 giant scorpions rose up on a platform. One of them shot a web that grabbed me and pulled me to them; I broke the web easily and took out the front legs of one in one swipe. I ran my hand down the flat side of my sword and it came alive with lightning; I took out another two with the lightning whip. One of them fired its tail laser so I stomped the ground; it lost its balance and cut itself in half with the laser. Another one of them tried to hit me with its tail laser so I rolled under the one in front of it; I felt the heat of the explosion and bits of scrap hit me as I rolled out from under it. I noticed I was near Genesis's sword so I picked it up and threw it at the tail laser scorpion. I stabbed my sword into legless scorpion and heard the voices over the intercom pick up again.

"Fuck! We're all dead! Get the fuck out! We were never here! Gas the chamber!" The first guard sounded hysterical. I heard one of them press a button, followed by a hissing noise; the intercom fell silent. A few seconds later, the room started to smell really foul. _What died in here? Wait, don't answer that. What _didn't _die in here?_

"Toxic gas detected, activating re-breather." The voice in my head chimed.The room started to get very foggy and smell progressively worse. After a few minutes, I could barely see two feet in front of me; but at least the hissing noise stopped.

"There is gas in the chamber. I wonder who the genius to use it last was." A third voice came through the intercom.

"They didn't even turn off the microphone. Alright, get the cleanup crew in there; it's obviously a mess in there." The voice grumbled; that was the last I heard from the intercom. I heard the door open so I turned on my smart vision; I saw people coming in, but I don't think they can see me.

"Gah, I can't see shit in here. Get this gas out of here" I heard a muffled voice coming from the door. I focused on my fire materia and the entire room burst into flames; momentarily blinding me and throwing me against the back wall. I was in so much pain I couldn't move.

"Warning: damage critical. Seek immediate medical attention." A voice chimed in my head. I heard multiple screams of pain; I opened my eyes and saw five burning figures running around wildly. The gas must have been flammable so it exploded when I tried to use my fire materia. I used all of my remaining strength to focus on any kind of restorative materia Tseng might have given me; I wasn't sure if I just convinced myself I felt better or if I actually was in less pain than before I started. I looked at my hands and didn't see any kind of burn marks or injuries. _I guess it worked._ I was in less pain, but I still couldn't make myself move. I heard several sets footsteps approaching, followed by the sound of someone kicking the sword away from my hand.

"Alright, subject is in custody. Proceeding with collection and return to holding cell." A voice announced. They picked me up and started carrying me to the door; I lost consciousness before actually crossing the threshold.


	14. Chapter 14

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **Saxon's POV ******

I was slowly drifting off to sleep on the couch when I heard a knock on the door. _Who the bloody hell could that be at this hour? _I slowly got up and lumbered to the door. I looked into the door eye and could not believe what I saw.

"Fyoderova!" was all I could come up with to say when I opened the door. She just stared at me with no visible reaction.

"Would you like to come in?" I offered; she didn't respond. I haven't even heard a sound from her since that night in London. I stood near the door for a few minutes, and then went to sit down on the couch and turn on the TV. I was slowly zoning out to the newscaster's fast talk about politics. My eyes were just about closed when I was pulled back to Earth by the sound of the door closing. _Not really sure what that was about, but ok. I should probably go to sleep soon. _I felt the couch cushion shift away from me slightly; she finally decided to come in. There was an uneasy silence for a couple of minutes; I gave up on waiting and broke the silence myself.

"So… how did you find me?" I asked; _to repeat the same action and expect different results is madness._ She never said anything when I first met her; she never even said anything when I saved her life in Montreal. She wasn't going to say anything now; I was just going to have to accept that. I waited a few minutes for her to answer, and then started walking to the bedroom.

"Thank you." I thought I was hearing things. Did she just say something? I turned around to see her looking me in the eye. I opened my mouth to speak, but I suddenly lost my grasp on the language so no words came out.

"Montreal. Thank you." She repeated. I was still speechless; my mind was completely silent as well. There was no way this was reality. Surely I just had too much to drink and now I'm just dreaming of what I wished I could witness.

"I couldn't just watch you die." memories of Montreal floated through my mind.

"It's bloody late, so I'm going to hit the sack. I'll see you in the morning if you're still here." I said as I resumed walking to my bedroom. _Does this mean my illusion of a normal life is over? I don't know if seeing her show up here after all this time is a good thing._ I was starting to mentally debate the meaning of Fyoderova's appearance when I felt the soft embrace of another person.

"Why?" Fyoderova's voice was almost a whisper.

"No one really chooses to work for Jaron. We are forced by life and circumstances to choose him. I know you didn't really like working for him; but you knew if you left he would come after you, like he did after me. I wanted you to have another chance at life." I explained the reason for my decision in Montreal; which ultimately may have jeopardized my attempt at a normal life. My answer was the sound of relaxed, rhythmic breathing; like that of someone who is asleep. I carefully walked her over to my bed and laid her down; I guess my queen-size bed wasn't entirely useless. _Finally some shut-eye._ I thought as I lay down.

I woke up to a needle of sunshine poking through a hole in my window blinds. I turned over to see Fyoderova still asleep; although she woke up a few seconds after I turned over. After she realized she was on my bed, she blushed and had a really embarrassed look on her face.

"Don't get your Tai Yong tighties in a twist, we didn't do anything. You fell asleep on my shoulder so I decided to walk you to my room since it was closer than the couch; and more comfortable." I explained dismissively. She turned away from me but stayed on the bed. _Everyone is out kicking doors and killing people, and I'm just sitting here with an emotionally sensitive assassin on my bed._ I was about to get up when I heard the herald of the end of my normal life.

"Bratan, you are needed again." Janus's crackly Russian accent came into my head through the infolink.

"No. I am done. I am trying to live a normal life. Key word 'trying'. A certain someone from the past showed up to my doorstep yesterday; I let them in, possibly against better judgment." I did not miss working for the Tyrants one bit; although it felt good to flip Jaron the bird by destroying those tracking systems and stealing one of his pilots. Janus did help me out a lot by getting me through mine and Anna's rough patch during the neuropozyne shortage.

"That certain someone is your partner for your next mission." Janus answered several of my questions about my new guest with that one line, and raised several new ones. I let out a heavy sigh.

"What is the mission?" I asked. On one hand, I felt like I owed Janus for all that he's helped me with and asked for nothing in return; on the other hand, I know if I come back for 'one mission', I won't be able to just leave after that 'one mission'.

"You are going to help Zack Fair escape Shinra custody so that he can take them down." Janus gave me the basics.

"Well if he was captured by them this time, how is he going to take them down after I help him escape?" I didn't feel like rescuing someone just for them to go back to where I rescued them from; seemed like wasted effort.

"He has made progress in fighting against them, but he cannot do it alone. He needs help; just as you did in blinding that suka Jaron. Shinra is a company comparable to Belltower, so the task of dismantling it is not for any one man." Janus gave me a little more detail; I felt like I had to talk for 30 minutes to get 2 minutes worth of information every time he gave me a mission.

"I have sent the coordinates to you. Udachi, bratan." Janus wished me good luck and his face faded from my infolink. I grabbed my assault rifle and ammo belt out of the closet and headed for the bedroom door.

"Fyoderova, I have been informed we are to go on a rescue mission in Detroit. We are to head out as soon as possible. Are you ready?" I delivered the main point of Janus's call. Fyoderova got up and nodded silently. She followed me on my way to the front door but stopped to pull her two machine pistols out from under the couch.

"There are four clips in my nightstand. You're welcome to them." I offered; I wasn't expecting her to have any ammo since she just showed up from God knows where. We headed out to the roof of my apartment complex; there was a helicopter already waiting for us.

**** **Zack's POV ******

_I thought I was doing better this time, but I again did not have any real plan. That doesn't matter, though. No amount of planning could have prepared me to see Aerith working for Shinra; let alone fight her._ I thought as I lay in my E.M.P. bed; after the show at the testing bunker, I was transferred to a hyper-security cell. They had limited my augmentations so much; it took some effort to even breathe. _Why didn't I realize that the gas may be flammable? Maybe if I didn't blow myself up, I would still have my freedom._ I was worried about the others; Cissnei, Jensen, Sarif, Pritchard. They must be worried sick.

"Critical system failure. This is not a dr-urrrrr…" A voice chimed and then faded to a stop; the way a talking kid's toy does when the battery dies. I felt like I could breathe normally again; even get up if I wanted to.

"Now is your chance, chuvak. There are a lot of people counting on your success and survival. You must escape this lab and go on to destroy Shinra." A crackly voice with a heavy Russian accent came through my infolink; the picture was an outline of a face made from pixels.

"Who are you?" I asked my mystery caller; this was seriously not the time for prank calls.

"You will find out in time if the need arises. It is who _you _are that is important right now. You are the person that will take down Shinra; and end their oppression of millions of people. But I know you cannot do it alone. Help is on the way. Your equipment is in the next hallway. Do vstrechi, chuvak." The crackly voice was very vague except for the part about my equipment; then vanished as if he never called in the first place.


	15. Chapter 15

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

I pulled on the door to my cell and it actually moved; though only a little at first. I had to actually put some strength into moving the door, but I was finally able to move it back enough to get through. _For a hyper-security cell, it's pretty easy to get out if you're augmented and the power goes out._ I thought as I walked out of my cell. I turned on my smart vision to help me see; it was pitch black without the lights on. I got to the hallway that the voice spoke of and looked around; I saw my equipment in the corner of the room, but no one guarding it. I quickly and quietly went over and picked up my stuff; with not a moment to spare. I heard a guard walking around outside of the room I was in right when I picked up my sword.

"I have a possible intruder in hi-sec. Moving in to investigate." The guard said into his radio and slowly walked towards the door. He flipped on a tactical flashlight while he just happened to be facing me; I had no time to cloak. I leaped forward and ran him through; the several shots he fired on my way to him ricocheted off me. I saw what Jensen meant. Pistol rounds didn't do much unless you got hit with a whole clip; assault rifles hurt like hell, but you're still alive. I wasn't bleeding, but it almost felt like I should have been. I looked around again but I didn't see anyone else coming. I made my way out of the room and out into the hallway to try to find an exit.

"Shots fired in hi-sec, I repeat; shots have been fired in hi-sec. All security personnel are advised to take intruder precautions." I heard a radio echo down the hall. _If I had a silencer, I could take this guy out right now and no one would ever know because of the power outage. _I considered picking him off with the assault rifle the first guard dropped, but it had no silencer; I wanted to stay hidden as long as possible.

"I think I heard something. This way." one of the guards called; I forgot that I can still be heard in the dark. I had turned around to go pick up the assault rifle when I two bursts of silenced, fully automatic gunfire; my eyes were instantly on the source of the noise but saw nothing but two guards on the floor. I went to pick up the assault rifle and the extra clip the guard in the equipment room had on him; I used my cloak to leave the room and get to the exit of the hyper-security area. I slid open the door without using my smart vision to check if anyone was on the other side; luckily, it was dark in the regular security area too.

"If someone is hiding over there, you better come out!" a guard commanded. Before I could react, I heard several hard impacts and the sound of a body fall on the floor. I looked around and again saw nothing. _Ok something strange is going on and I don't like it. _I walked very slowly and quietly down to the end of the hall and peeked around the corner; I heard what sounded like boots landing on the floor from jumping out of the ceiling. I quickly found out I only had 6 bullets in the assault rifle I picked up.

"Hey, watch it! I'm on your bloody side!" I heard a voice with a British accent protest.

"Who are you?" I demanded; I quickly put in a fresh clip.

"Ben Saxon. I was sent to rescue you from this facility. I'm glad to see you're at least out of your cell." The voice explained.

"Who sent you?" I asked; the answer was not what I expected.

"Janus. Or so he calls himself. Now come on, let's get out of here." He suggested.

"Were you the one sneaking around and killing guards like a ghost?" I was sure I was not just imagining things.

"No, that was my partner. You might see her soon." Saxon sounded slightly uneasy when he told me this. An awkward silence hung in the air until we reached the lab part of the complex.

"We should be getting close to our exit point." Saxon announced; mumbling something afterward.

"Hit the deck!" He shouted as he dove to the side. I looked ahead of me and saw a slender figure uncloak and aim at me with two machine pistols; on their way up I dropped to the ground. Fractions of a second later, I heard a familiar burst of fully automatic gunfire followed by a body hitting the ground.

"Hey, watch it, will ye? We are supposed to get him out of here in one piece." Saxon scolded the slender figure.

"That is my partner, Fyoderova." Saxon said with the same uneasy tone as earlier. _If he says "she's nice once you get to know her" I'm going to lose it._ Getting a gun pointed at you by someone you never met before even exchanging names with them never ended well. We were walking down a hallway that Saxon directed me to when the lights came back on.

"Shit! They fixed the power! We have to get out of here _now_!" Saxon cursed the lights. I punched a hole in the wall in front of us and saw the promising light of the sun coming through.

"Cloak and run like hell! Don't worry about us!" Saxon shouted; the moment was so full of adrenaline I just bolted towards the city without thinking.

**** **Jensen's POV ******

Cissnei had come over to talk to me about Zack and how she missed him. She said was I was the only person she could realistically expect to talk to about it.

"D-do you think he's…" She began to ask.

"If he was dead, there would have been something on the Shinra frequencies and Pritchard would have called me." I answered; that was the fifth time today she's asked that.

"I'm going to get some fresh air." I said as I walked to the front door. When I got out into the hallway, I saw Fyoderova going into Cissnei's apartment. _She's alive?! What the fuck does she want with Cissnei?! _My mind was racing faster than a Harvester's sports car. I ran down to Cissnei's apartment and flew into the door.

"Whoa whoa whoa, where's the fire?" I heard a voice from the left as an arm came up to prevent me from going any further.

"Who the hell are you? And what is she doing here?" I demanded.

"I am Ben Saxon. I used to be a member of the Tyrants." The voice introduced itself.

"And what is she doing here? How is she even alive?" I clearly remembered that night in Montreal; yet there she was in front of me right now.

"I had also come to Montreal in search of answers, but I was just a few seconds behind you. I saw Fyoderova lying on the floor, and I couldn't just watch her die." Saxon explained.

"She actually helped me rescue Zack from the Shinra lab." He added.

"How did you know where to find Zack? Are you behind his disappearance and now you come to 'rescue' him and look like the hero?" I asked accusingly; they were both Tyrant members; former or not, I still did not trust them.

"What's all the ruckus? Oh. Jensen. I guess you've met Fyoderova and Saxon." Zack mumbled; how he was able to sleep after this clusterfuck I will never know.

"These two said they rescued you. How did they know where to look?" I asked him; maybe Zack will actually shed some light on this matter.

"A crackly Russian voice told them where I was. And then killed the power to the whole facility." Zack's vague one-liner told me more than any video or surveillance record ever could. _Janus is in on this? Why? Then again, if Eliza is in on this, Janus surely wouldn't be far behind._

"Don't think you're off the hook entirely just yet, Fyoderova. That being said, I do still greatly appreciate your help in rescuing Zack." I told her; she gave a small smile in reply. _A smiling assassin. No, no I'm seeing things. I am way overstressed by this whole mess that I am seeing things. _ I was going to keep an eye on her; but at the same time I couldn't really see what she could gain out of helping Zack, so maybe she really has changed.

**** **Cissnei's POV ******

I was coming back to my apartment after taking a walk and I noticed the piece of clear tape I had put on the side of the door that comes out of the wall was broken. _Who could be in my apartment? And why?_ I never got any visitors so it naturally looked suspicious that someone besides me entered my apartment without me there; my mind suddenly raced and my heart hoped that it was Zack. When I opened the door, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life; Zack was safely in the living room, talking to everyone. I ran and embraced him tightly.

"Zack! I was so worried! I'm glad you're ok!" tears welled up in my eyes; but I couldn't be happier.


	16. Chapter 16

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

******Jensen's** **POV, Private conversation between Jensen, Saxon and Fyoderova******

Things made less sense than when I found Megan working for that bastard Namir. Fyoderova fought against me in Eliza's AI core. She was part of the Tyrants. What could she gain from helping Zack?

"What is your angle in this, Fyoderova?" I asked the brooding assassin. No answer as usual.

"I'm asking so that you don't end up on the wrong end of a Typhoon detonation. So it would be in your best interest to-"

"Hey, don't grill her like a side of meat. She's human too, you know; well as much as you or me at least." Saxon interrupted.

"It's... It's fine... Ben..." Fyoderova finally answered.

"I did attack him when he got to the AI Core. He doesn't have a reason to trust me just yet." she sounded like she was on _my _side; and I'm the one grilling her.

"I will tell you my story. If you listen." she offered.

"I had just been extracted from a mission at a black site. We were flying home when our helicopter got shot down. Namir just happened to be at the crash site and said if I gave my life to him, he would save me. I didn't like some of the assignments he gave me, but it was money so I couldn't bring myself to say anything. After a while, he said he could give me my life back if I brought him the life of another 'person of interest'; Adam Jensen. He had hidden me in the AI core because he knew you would show up there eventually. I wanted answers just like you; I thought you were there to keep me from them. I attacked because I saw my freedom through turning you in. I'm sorry. I realize now that he would have just kept giving me the same promise after I brought you in." Fyoderova explained our last meeting and her path to becoming a Tyrant.

"So what finally made you switch sides and leave the Tyrants?" I asked; since she was obviously out of the loop after our last meeting, I was unsure how she would have found out about Namir's death; this was the kind of group you only left after everyone else was dead.

"A voice from my homeland. I couldn't believe my ears at first." She answered; she must be referring to Janus.

******Fyoderova's Flashback******

"You will be dropped off at one of Sarif's LIMB clinics. Try to find the director...and deal with him. Try to get some information from him before you do, though. As for everyone else, kill them if they get in your way." Namir briefed me over the infolink; I would later find out that was not Namir but a reconstructed copy of his voice being used by a computer program that he wrote to serve as him in his absence. I didn't even wait for the helicopter to fully stop when we got close to the clinic; I jumped out and landed onto a nearby building that was closer to me. Namir was too cheap to actually get me - or anyone else besides him, for that matter - an Icarus landing system, so I had to make do with traditional methods of leaving aircraft. _The sooner I get in there and interrogate the director, the sooner I will be done with this mission. _This was a hospital. He was really expecting me to kill people in a hospital. I didn't have much choice though. If I didn't, he would kill me, and have someone else kill these people; with interest to make up for my shortcoming. I easily got into the building and past the customer lobby through an outside air vent; since it was a hospital, they didn't worry as much about building security as a corporation or military base would. I didn't run into any problems until I actually got to the director's office. I had to pull my gun on the secretary but I never fired it; we came to a nonviolent agreement. When I got into the office, he was at his desk; too busy reading paperwork to notice that someone had come into his office. He was more attractive than I figured someone in his position might be. _I really don't want to be the one to put holes in a face like his. _He got up and turned towards the bookshelf in his office; I quickly activated my cloak and froze in place. He walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out one of the books; he seemed to be looking for something in it. I quietly walked up behind him and uncloaked. I gently put my hands on his shoulders and slid them to caress the sides of his neck; I knew this was highly unprofessional but I didn't care; I was strangely attracted to him and I was going to feed my attraction for once. My hands didn't get far at all before he started screaming; I probably would too if someone's hands randomly appeared on my shoulders when I was supposed to be alone. He only screamed for a fraction of a second, however, because of my lightning reflexes; my hand covered his mouth without me even thinking about it. He still tried to scream for help a few times but gave up when he realized he couldn't get very loud with my hand over his mouth.

"I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted you dead, you would be on the floor 10 minutes ago." somehow that came out in a seductive tone and not a calming one.

"I am going to let go of your mouth. Slowly. I won't make any sudden movements if you don't scream." I offered a truce.

"Wha... What do you want?" the director asked me in a shaky voice.

"I need the plans for the Icarus Landing system. My boss is also looking for a new re-breather implant; and wanted it done professionally. Do you think you could help?" there was that seductive tone again; I don't know why I was having such a hard time controlling myself.

"I-I can't give the plans to just a-anybody." he stammered out.

"You're not going to kill me for the plans, are you?" he asked timidly when he noticed my machine pistol on my hip.

"No. But you might shoot me after you hear my offer." I smiled at him.

"But I'm unarmed!" he protested.

"Who said you needed a gun?" I said coquettishly as I leaned against him and slid my hand up his leg. I took his hand and slid it down my lower back, but was interrupted right when I was getting to the good part.

"Fyoderova. Namir is dead. You no longer have to waste human life or shame yourself for information. You are free to live as a normal citizen." a crackly voice came over my infolink; he had a Russian accent.

"We will be in contact again." the voice added before the pixilated outline of a face faded. _Might as well give the director at least something for his time. _I locked lips with him as my tongue danced with his. I felt him gently squeeze my ass.

"Change of plans. My boss has suffered an ill fate and I no longer work for him. Don't worry about the re-breather. Or the Icarus system. You can continue your life as you were before my visit. It might be best if you forgot I was ever here." I said as I pulled away. By the time he recovered from his close encounter, I was already gone. I knew that if I stayed there, I might have started something I couldn't finish; or worse, did finish and run into complications. I was a lone wolf and I could not afford to have any attachments traveling with me; I've got enough weaknesses as it is.

**** **A few days later** ****

I had gotten only a couple hours of sleep in the last week and I was starting to get delirious.

"If it is sleep and shelter that you seek, I know someone who can help you; provided you are willing to help him with an important mission." The crackly voice from earlier was back again.

"I'm done with important missions. I'm done with killing for someone else." I said weakly.

"Do not worry; this is a mission of peace. Should you accept it, your partner will explain the details to you." The voice assured me.

"Who are you? How did you find me?" I asked the voice; how did I know this was not just another Tyrant ploy?

"The few who I have contacted call me Janus. But who I am is not important. Your choice to accept this mission or not decides whether the Tyrants are gone for good or will be back to terrorize the free world." Janus explained.

"Alright. Where do I meet this person?" I caved and asked; at least he gave me some information about what the mission is going to be, even if it does turn out to be false.

"I have sent the location to your infolink. Udachi." Janus faded from my infolink again; I still was not sure whether he had actually contacted me or I was hearing things. I was actually surprised to find an apartment at the address on my infolink. Saxon's initial reaction made me doubt Janus's message at first, but he came around later.

**** **End of Flashback ******

"So that is how I ended up here. I don't have any 'angle' or personal gain in this. Except maybe get closer to Saxon. The director of that clinic did kind of look like him so that might explain why things turned out like they did." Fyoderova explained as she shot a flirty look at Saxon.

"I've missed you Saxon. You've gotten even more attractive since the AI core in Montreal. You saved me even though I was on assignment from Namir." Fyoderova seemed like a completely different person from the cold assassin I fought in the AI core. I'm still going to keep an eye on her. I blindly trusted Sarif because he was my boss, and then Pritchard really hit me over the head with the truth about Sarif; I don't feel like going through that with someone potentially dangerous.


	17. Chapter 17

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

**** **A few months later** ****

**** **Aerith's POV ******

I laid on my bed, thinking back to my encounter with Zack. There were a lot of things I could have done differently; a lot of opportunities I could have taken advantage of if I didn't hesitate. Part of me still thought Zack was alive, I guess; or at least wanted him to be alive. I could have captured him right there; no greeting or introduction that would lead to complications. _Why did I hesitate so much? I should not have been as laid back as I was; he had obviously received some specialized combat training somewhere. _I knew I could not afford any hesitations or doubts next time. Zack is an enemy of the company and should be treated as such. _The Zack I used to know couldn't even conceive the thought of raising his sword against me. That Zack is gone now. I have to kill this imposter so that he stops perverting my memory of the old Zack. _Fighting him was one thing; he's talked about trying to teach me how to fight. Killing him is completely different. I know I would not be able to take his life myself; I know the old Zack is still in there somewhere. He hesitated multiple times during the fight too; or am I just in denial and his hesitation was due to inexperience instead of emotional interference? Either way, I had to be ready for our next fight; a rematch was inevitable, whether it came tomorrow or a year from now. _Even if I do get past my hesitation of fighting him, how do I beat him? His augments have increased his physical capabilities exponentially. _I had watched the surveillance video from the Detroit facility; it was almost impossible to keep hope alive after what I saw. How do I defeat such a beast? _No doubt he will bring his friends with him. My only hope is that he fights me alone; I will at least have a warrior's death._ They won't have any trouble getting to me now that all of Shinra's heroes are gone. I had to mentally brace myself for the falling of endless Shinra soldier bodies. They have no chance against Zack; I lacked the authority to give any kind of stand down order. _He even pulled himself out of death's grasp with his own power. _I am really all that is standing between Zack and the president of Shinra; his high security office means next to nothing against people like Zack.

**** **Zack's POV ******

_Today was the big day; I am going to call everyone and we will finally take the fight to Shinra. I have waited long enough._ I called Sarif to help me gather everyone.

"If you really want to go after Shinra, I can't really stop you." Sarif opened with his usual warning right out of the gate.

"I am finally ready. With all the experience and training that I have received, I will finally be able to take them on. If you help me gather my team, there is no way I can lose." I explained.

"Who is your team? Have you told them?" Sarif asked.

"Jensen, Saxon, and Fyoderova. Not yet. I was going to ask if you could call them to your office so I could talk to them there." I told Sarif my plan.

"I can call them here, but I can't make them go. That's all on you." Sarif warned.

"I will talk to them. I understand. I will see you in a few minutes." I said and ended the call.

When I got to Sarif's office, everyone else was already there.

"Sarif said you had something important to share with everyone." Saxon said with a questioning look.

"Cissnei's noticeable absence raises some alarming suspicions." Jensen gave me an almost accusing look.

"Cissnei is not here because I want her to stay here. I don't want her to know that I'm doing this." I explained.

"You're going to go fight Shinra, aren't you?" Saxon asked.

"Yes; but I am not going alone. I hope you all will come with me." I admitted.

"You know she is going to notice you're not here eventually and then go looking for you; she won't be happy when she finds you." Jensen pointed out.

"Don't worry about Cissnei; I just need your help with Shinra." I clarified where I needed his help.

"If she ends up trying to kill you, don't say I didn't warn you." Jensen sighed.

"Let's move out before we are discovered." I suggested. Without another word, my three new teammates got up and headed to the helipad.

"Where are you all headed?" Malik asked; four armed-to-the-teeth special ops soldiers going to the same place would make anyone curious.

"Shinra HQ. Zack can give you the location." Jensen had a slightly odd tone; like he had a bad feeling about the mission.

"Strap yourselves in, guys." Malik announced; I didn't really like the sound of that either. The flight to Shinra HQ was long and silent. _Maybe I'm just over thinking things and everything will be fine. I can't really turn back now; I may have died here once already, but I have to set things right. What if they found Cloud? I would never forgive them _or_ myself. Then there is Aerith. They already did something to her. I know I will see her again. But how am I going to raise my sword against her a second time? It was already hard enough the first time. I know if I just defeat her in combat and leave her alive, she will come after me again. Killing her is even-_ I was pulled out of my trance of thought by a bone-jarring explosion.

"We've been hit! You four bail, I can take care of myself. I've already done this before." Malik announced. "_In case we get shot down…"_ Malik's warning from my first ride with her echoed through my mind.

"Come on, and bloody jump already. You're the last sad sack in this gravy box." Saxon called as he jumped out of the door. I ran and jumped out of the door but the cross guard of my sword caught on the edge of the door so I more fell than jumped out of the helicopter. I stabilized myself with the Icarus system and broke through one of the lower level windows of the building. The whole room screamed and started frantically shuffling around.

"Everybody calm down. I'm sure it's just another science experiment. If we get anybody panicking -" The man talking to the group of people in front of him stopped mid-sentence and turned around to look at me; his eyes darted to my gleaming sword.

"Help! Guards! Mayday!" He shouted in panicked voice.

"I would have used the door but they know me down there." I joked and ran off towards the elevator. I was surprised I was still able to find it since I was never in this part of Shinra before; I haven't been inside Shinra HQ at all for almost 5 years now. I hit the button to call the elevator and it instead called the alarm system. _Staircase it is, then._ I made it up a couple of flights of stairs before soldiers burst through one of the doors and started chasing me. I tossed my sword in front of me and it sticks into the wall; as it is flying I cloaked and rolled backward. As I rolled by one of the guards I pulled the assault rifle out of his hands; when I reached the landing of the previous floor, I used it to mow down my pursuers except for him.

"Catch!" I uncloaked and tossed the rifle back to him; as soon as he caught the rifle, I hit him with a fireball. I made it a point not to shoot unarmed targets; how long the target had been armed was irrelevant. I ran up to the landing between the two floors and pulled my sword out of the wall. After several more flights of stairs, I took a break and sat down for a few minutes. _I should be getting really close now._ Aerith would not get out of my mind. I still could not believe that she had changed so much. I heard the door in front of me open; without looking I threw a lightning bolt at my unwelcome visitor. I heard a scream and several rounds being fired blindly, followed by the gun falling on the floor and the guard crashing into a nearby desk. I grabbed my sword and continued up the stairs. When I got to the next floor I saw a sign on the door that read "SOLDIER Barracks/Training area: Authorized personnel only". _This looks like I'm getting close._ I kicked the door in and immediately dove back behind the wall; a volley of fully automatic fire poured through the open door.

"The door has been breached, but we have lost visual of the target. I repeat, door has been breached, lost visual." One of the guards announced. I shot the floor with a fireball for smoke cover; I quickly realized I was going to get more than just smoke. Within a few minutes the entire entrance was engulfed in flames. I wasn't sure what to do so I just ran up to the next floor. _If they haven't moved anything, this should be the SOLDIER Director's office. _I kicked in the door and walked inside.

"You're finally here. Are you ready for the rematch? You had to know this was coming. I hope you've prepared yourself. Only one of us will be leaving this room." Aerith was sitting on the director's desk; her staff next to her.

"I never asked for this; yet you still are intent on forcing my hand. Why? What did they do to you here?" I asked her; I knew it was a lost cause but this was not about getting Aerith back anymore. This was about closure; I wanted to make sure for myself that the old Aerith was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

Aerith stood up and grabbed her staff; this was the fight I have been training for since our first encounter but I still felt like I wasn't ready.

"Shinra gave me more than you ever thought to. The flower cart was nice, but I wanted to do something more. I didn't want to just walk around and sell flowers my whole life. I know I didn't express it as well as I should have, but I wanted to go on adventures like you. You never thought to actually teach me to defend myself. It's not completely your fault since I was pretty naïve back then, but you could have at least offered." Aerith explained. _Opening with a verbal assault. She might be as hesitant about this rematch as I am._

"So you really like it here better? Were all the Mako experiments worth it? Having Hojo run his tests and whatever else? Since you were a female subject, I'm sure you got a more "personal" set of experiments. I saw he had plans to breed you with some kind of dog beast; before he was repurposed as a fresh coat of paint by a Typhoon round." I reminded her of what I went through when I joined SOLDIER, and part of what I went through afterward.

"I had to basically give up my humanity and relearn everything as a machine. I don't even feel things the same anymore. I've also went through the SOLDIER training before that. We have both been through a lot of suffering. I feel your pain, but this is not the way to deal with it." I tried to reason with her.

"You know nothing, Zack Fair!" Aerith snapped and charged at me. I barely had time to block her staff swing; I did not expect her to end the conversation so abruptly. There was something different about her this time. I didn't feel any hesitation in her attack this time. _Maybe it was a fluke; she did jump kind of impulsively. _It was really me that was hesitating. I was still thinking about the old Aerith when the new one was right here looking for a fight. I jumped back and assumed a defensive stance; I needed to focus on the fight at hand.

"Come on; are you just going to defend yourself the whole time like last time? I want a good fight and you're going to give it to me; whether it's of your own will or I get one of Hojo's bugs to control you again." Aerith demanded and gave me an ultimatum. She threw several fireballs at me; I dodged them right into her staff's leg sweep.

"Your hesitation will send you to an early grave." Aerith warned as she jabbed at me with the end of her staff. I narrowly dodged it and was able to roll back onto my feet.

"You're the same pacifist now as you were at the start of our first fight. Have they taught you nothing?" Aerith sounded angry and disappointed.

"Are you just going to run from me as you have been from Shinra this whole time? You can't run forever." she taunted; her zeal for combat was so strange to me.

"Angeal ran when he ran into problems too. Where is he now?" Aerith crossed the line with that comment.

"You leave Angeal out of this! He was trying his best to protect his honor!" I shouted back and slashed at her; I could tell I caught her by surprise because I did slightly catch the surface of her outfit. I attacked from several different angles but her defense was flawless; she blocked or dodged every swing. I knew materia was useless because her staff would just absorb it like it did the first time. I dropped my sword and jumped towards Aerith; I caught her completely off-guard and was able to wrap my hands and legs around her solidly.

"What the hell are you doing? Get off me!" Aerith growled.

"You don't have to do this! You need to snap out of whatever trance they put you in and come back to the real you!" I pleaded; I was just grasping at straws now, there was nothing I could do to bring the old Aerith back. I had begun to wonder whether there had ever been an old Aerith to begin with; some of these combat strategies she seemed to be a little too proficient in.

"Hello? This _is _the real me! I just grew up." Aerith was clearly getting frustrated at my denial of losing who she used to be. The way she said "hello" sent me for a brief trip down memory lane. I lost my grip on Aerith as memories of our first meeting in the church came into my mind. I was pulled back to reality when I felt her push me away from her. I rolled back and picked up my sword again. _Wait a minute. I feel like an idiot. Why am I still using my human strength? I have not put any effort into this fight. It has all been defensive maneuvers and fake attacks that could be misinterpreted as distractions._ My sudden realization hit me like a truck. She's been able to block because I'm only using my human strength. I have been slowly letting her win this whole time. _There is a reason people fear everyone augmented. We are not hindered by doors or barricades. We are unstoppable._ I leaped towards Aerith with a downward slash; she blocked it but had to quickly jump back under the pressure.

"Have you been toying with me this whole time? The gloves are off now. You will pay for this indecency." Aerith threatened.

"I wasn't toying with you. I was just forgetting my strength." I corrected her. I focused on my sword and made a hard slash towards her, which created a traveling shockwave. She tried to block it but it knocked her against the wall.

"This is what I was talking about! Why didn't you fight like this earlier?" Aerith demanded an answer. She charged at me and raised her staff to strike; I not only blocked it but I was able to push her back. She clicked a small remote she pulled out of her pocket and all of the lights in the room turned off. _If Sarif spent half a billion dollars brining me back to life, wouldn't she think he would spend an extra couple hundred to give me night vision?_ I thought it was very odd that she turned off the lights; knowing I am heavily augmented. I heard one misstep behind me and turned around to block a surprise attack.

"How did you find me? It's completely dark in the room and I was completely silent." Aerith sounded genuinely surprised.

"I have night vision and augmented hearing? Wouldn't you think that's the first thing they augmented on me?" I asked; I was really curious about what her plan with the lights was and why she didn't think I would be able to see her.

"The old you wouldn't have thought to use night vision." Aerith verbally jabbed. _Now that's just uncalled for._ I threw a fireball at her; as she raised her staff to absorb it, I slashed at her with my sword from the other side. She tried to dodge the slash and ended up tackling the wall. My sword dug into the wall and stopped just short of touching her because of the positioning of her staff.

"I'm guessing the old me would not have thought to combine sword, materia, and the environment into one attack either. I've learned a lot during my time training with Jensen and my first encounter with you. I've just lived so long with my human strength; I keep forgetting I have so much more strength now than I ever did before." I recapped my own path to power this time; the tables have turned completely. _I wonder if this is how Sephiroth felt when he first discovered his newfound strength and actually used it to best his first opponent in battle._

"Don't get smart with me just because you've finally grown up a little." Aerith grumbled; _I resent that. I grew up when I got promoted to 1__st__ class._ At least I thought I did. Aerith used this minor distraction to push me away and get off the wall. I threw two fireballs on either side of her, and then jabbed my sword straight down the middle; I was temporarily deafened by the piercing sound of steel against steel. The point of my sword has landed exactly in the center of her staff. The ball was in my court now; I could finally close this whole chapter of chaos. The problem was; I was not sure I wanted to.


	19. Chapter 18 Authors Note

**A/N**: There are four endings to this fight. They are found in the four chapters following this one. I hope you like them :D

"You can't stop the end of the world, but you can see it from here" – Eliza Cassan


	20. Chapter 19 Alternate Ending 1

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

It felt like a stalemate until I realized something; her staff was preoccupied, leaving her open to elemental attacks. _This is it. I will no longer have to hide after this. I will finally be free. _ I took one hand off my sword and shot her with a glacial spike. She stumbled back a few steps and then collapsed on the floor. The glacial spike had gored her pretty badly.

"You're a fool if you think you have won." She wheezed her final words before clicking one last button on her remote.

**** **Elsewhere in the building, Jensen's POV** ****

We were taking a break when Saxon heard something.

"You guys hear that?" he asked; his face perked up like he's hunting for someone. I focused on listening for what he was talking about. I heard a dull rumbling.

"Get the fuck out of the building, now!" I shouted as I ran with all of my strength towards the window and jumped through it. I heard two more windows breaking barely a second after mine; Saxon and Fyoderova had followed me without question at a split second's notice. They trusted me; maybe I should trust them too. We landed on the roof of a nearby building and watched the Shinra building collapse.

"Do you think he made it out alive?" Saxon asked; he clearly didn't know Zack well enough.

"Zack would have been running even before us if he heard that noise." I informed him; if Zack didn't make it out alive, I'm not going back to Detroit. I won't hear the end of it from Cissnei.

"The dust has settled. Let's scan the debris." Fyoderova suggested. I turned on my smart vision and started looking around. I found two bodies closer together than any of the other ones. I started digging; throwing aside pieces of cement and drywall. After a few minutes, I saw the first body. Aerith. _Zack is not going to be happy when he hears this. _I dug next to her and found the second body; but I really wish I hadn't. It was Zack. _It's official. I'm moving out of Detroit; or I am hiding somewhere inside Sarif Industries._

"What did you f-... Bloody hell." Saxon was in the middle of asking me if I found anything when he got his answer.

"No signs of life; from either of them." I sighed.

"Which of them do you think did it?" Fyoderova asked; I felt like she knew, but decided not to cut in with her experience.

"I'm not sure. I don't think it was Zack because he could barely even fight her. Let alone actually kill her. Even if he did, be would try to make sure that he survived." I really wasn't sure; this really didn't seem like Zack. This felt like a last-minute act of desperation; or maybe a twisted mind's last laugh.

"One of us has to tell Cissnei not me." I sighed; I slipped in my declination before they could say anything.

"I will tell her. She might take it better from me." Fyoderova offered.

"You were sent to come tell me about a mission to assassinate someone I used to work with and we ended up in bed. Are you planning to have your end way with her?" Saxon jokingly referenced a previous experience.

"Maybe I am. You didn't stop me and I doubt she would either." Fyoderova said with a smirk. I wanted to laugh but I still could not believe Zack was dead; after all that training, it was still not enough. _Oh, damn it. I forgot about Sarif. He will have my head for letting him get killed. _I cleared off Zack's body of debris; it actually didn't look as terrible as I thought it would after being buried alive by a collapsing building. _He did say to make sure Shinra didn't end up with the technology. Maybe if I take the body back to Sarif HQ he won't get as mad; I know how he likes to guard his bottom line._

"Well, I guess there is nothing we can do here." I sighed; I picked up Zack's body and was about to start walking to a helipad when I heard a helicopter approaching.

"Get the fuck on the ground before I kill you all!" a voice demanded angrily from a loudspeaker. Fyoderova pulled put both of her machine pistols and emptied both of them into the helicopter; she must have hit the pilot somehow because it started to lose altitude. The three of us got away from the predicted crash site as it got closer and closer to the ground. Before the fire fully engulfed the helicopter, I pulled the pilot and the passenger out of their seats.

"Nice job, Fyoderova; you whacked the president of Shinra. And not in the way he would have liked." Saxon announced after finding the passenger's I.D.

"Just because I had sex with you that one time without any words, doesn't mean I want to fuck everyone." Fyoderova pointed out; she was getting annoyed by all of Saxon's wise cracks. _Hm. Sexon's sax cracks. _Clearly this trip had taken a toll on my mind. I was about to call Malik when I remembered how we got here. _Don't tell me we lost her too. _

"Jensen? Did you make it out ok?" I heard Malik's voice come over the infolink.

"Yeah. I'm glad you did too; or I would assume so since I'm hearing your voice." I was glad to hear her voice; at least that's one less person that we lost on this trip.

"Yeah. I will be coming in a Shinra helicopter so don't be alarmed. I trust you took care of business?" She asked; I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her. I wasn't going to weigh her down with the news while she flew alone.

"It's a long story." I sighed; even though it happened only a few minutes ago, I was already trying not to think about it.  
"Oh. I'm… I'm sorry for your loss. I see now why you didn't want to tell me over infolink." Malik sighed when she arrived at the ruins of the Shinra building; she noticed Zack was visibly absent.

"We aren't sure who did it, but that doesn't really matter much now. I'm taking the body back to Sarif because he specifically said to make sure the augs did not land into anyone else's hands." I told her what I knew and explained why I brought the body on board. The flight back to Sarif HQ felt like a funeral procession.

"Jensen! Where is Zack?" Cissnei asked as soon as the helicopter landed; the door had barely opened a foot and she was already asking me questions. I didn't say anything and waited until the door fully opened.

"Oh my God! Zack! We have to get him to-" I interrupted her by gently putting my hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry. He's gone." I said quietly; the more I thought about this whole mess, the more I wanted to drown myself in liquor.

"We went to take the fight to Shinra, and things were going relatively well. Then the building collapsed and we found him dead under the rubble along with one of Shinra's top assassins." I explained what happened.

"Why didn't you tell me you all were going there? Why didn't you stop him?" She demanded after she slapped me.

"He would have left with or without us. You can't hold back people like him; once he sets his mind on a goal, he wont stop trying to achieve it until he is dead." I tried to calm her down, but she wasn't listening.

"You're a multi-billion dollar company! You can't tell me you could not restrain one person!" She snapped and reached for her throwing star. I embraced her tightly and didn't let go; I did not want any more casualties than I've already had to suffer through.

"Let me go! I'm never going to forgive you!" she shouted; I wasn't looking for forgiveness, I was just hoping for civility.

"I don't expect you to forgive me. I just want to prevent more bloodshed." I explained.

"Hey, The gang is- hey, what's going on?" Reno's voice came through the roof access door. Cissnei used this distraction to break free of my grasp and tumble away. She threw her shuriken at me; since I was standing sideways instead of facing her, it narrowly missed me and was headed for Fyoderova.

"Fyo-" was all I had time to get out before I heard several silenced gunshots; Fyoderova had dodged the shuriken and fired back; her combat reflexes never slept.

"Cissnei! God damn it! We need a medic up here, NOW!" I ran to Cissnei to try and keep her stable until the medics got here; when I saw where the bullet wound was, I realized it was pointless. _No. Zack was in even worse condition when he came in and we still saved him. I have to try._ The two bullet wounds directly where the heart was were highly discouraging, but I had to still try.

**** **Omniscient observer POV ******

"Ooh. Particularly nasty piece of work here." One of the doctors commented. He was able to remove the first bullet, but he lost Cissnei as he was removing the second one.

"Clear!" another doctor shouted over the flat line of the heart monitor; he was waiting with a defibrillator on stand-by. The body jolted a couple times, but it was no use.

"Get me Guardian, stat!" the Chief surgeon called. They put it in as fast as they could while still making sure not to cut any corners but the body rejected it; the motor burned out trying to work with the arteries.

"Damn it. I guess… I guess I'm going to call it." The Chief Surgeon sighed.

"2:13 a.m. Rejection of artificial heart." He mumbled as he wrote it down. He walked out to the waiting room and was met at the door by Jensen.

"I'm sorry, Jensen. We couldn't save her." the Chief Surgeon said in a solemn tone. Jensen grumbled and went home to drown the rest of the night in liquor.

"Zack, you misguided fool. Your zeal for revenge ended in the death of 3 people; one of them being yourself. Your living legacy dies with Shinra." Jensen grumbled to himself when he got home; he chased the thought with a swig from the bottle on the coffee table.

_I hope you can live with yourself in whatever afterlife you end up in_ he thought as he drifted off into a liquor trance.


	21. Chapter 19 Alternate Ending 3

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

When my hearing returned to me, I heard the sound of a sword being quickly pulled out of a metal sheath. I jumped back and saw that it was, in fact, a sword. _A sword cane? Looks like I'm not the only person toying around._ I had to be on my guard; I may be augmented but I don't know what kind of surprises Aerith might have in store.

"I never thought I would actually need a sword cane until today." Aerith said with a smile. _I have beaten Sephiroth before; I didn't have his sword at the time. This shouldn't be too hard; she is more used to unarmed and staff combat. _I charged my sword with lightning and moved forward to attack; she blocked my slash and it was her sword this time that drained the lightning out of my sword. _So that is how she is able to absorb elements; that sword. Elemental materia make contact with the staff and get absorbed through it into the blade. _"So this is how you've been able to absorb the elements. I was beginning to think you were an alien or an android or something." I said while we were in the face off. She glared at me and quickly twisted her sword; I lost my grip on mine and it clattered across the ground several feet away from me.

"Sephiroth was not the only sword hero Shinra had. I may not be as experienced, but I damn sure will put up a good fight. Your strength means nothing if you don't truly know how to use it." Aerith said before she ran at me again. I stomped the ground and cloaked; the miniature shockwave of my stomp created a distraction and allowed me to dive out of the way without her adjusting her plan of attack.

"Enough with the cheap parlor tricks. Get your sword and we will fight like the officers we were trained to be. You may be considered dead by Shinra, but you were considered an officer first; fight like one." Aerith demanded. I picked up my sword; no sooner than I had stood up with it, she was already on the offensive again. I slashed at her and she didn't look like she was going to block it. My sword went right through her like a chef's knife through a bell pepper; the image of her body dissipated into vapor. _I am so dead. I remember this and I don't like where this is going._ I narrowly dodged Aerith's ambush from behind. She appeared in front of me and I threw a lightning bolt at her; another direct hit on a vapor phantom.

"I thought you said we were going to fight like officers." I taunted.

"Yeah, I just thought I would have some fun." Aerith laughed. She appeared a few feet in front of me and assumed a defensive stance.

"Ready when you are." She called. _I have no choice but to defeat her; it is the only way to stop this madness._

**** **Elsewhere in the building, Saxon's POV ******

Hearing panicked screams and frantic shuffling of feet, followed by the sound of falling paperwork had worn down my second to last nerve half an hour ago.

"What the hell are we even doing here? I haven't seen Zack since the bollocks at the chopper, and I haven't seen one bloody Shinra soldier so far. What does he need us for anyway?" I protested allowed; Fyoderova was the only one around to hear me, unfortunately. _She may have started talking more, but I still doubt she holds any real opinion on anything. I don't expect her to hold one on this either, but at least she listens more than these pencil pusher sods._

"Freeze! Identify yourselves! This is a restricted area!" a commanding voice called behind me, followed by a burst of silenced gunfire and a body falling to the floor.

"You wanted bloody Shinra soldier? Look behind you." Fyoderova said in an almost flirty tone. _Leave it to her to flirt using bloodshed. Why do I always have to attract the crazy ones?_ There was another burst of gunfire followed almost immediately by Fyoderova's lips locking with mine.

"This reminds me of the job I did for Namir at Sarif Industries." Fyoderova mumbled. When I felt her tongue on mine, I pushed her away and reminded her of our mission.

"Have you gone mad? We are on a mission." I reminded her of the task at hand.

"You said yourself we don't know what we are looking for. We haven't heard from him since we got here; he would have called us by now if he needed any help. I think we were just insurance." Fyoderova had a good point; we _haven't _heard from him since we saw him on the helicopter.

"Yeah, you're right. This mission is going nowhere." I agreed; if he really needed our help, he would have called by now.

"So what now? We don't really have a way to get home except for walking." I asked; if we were abandoning the mission, what was she planning to do after we left the building?

"Who says we have to go anywhere?" she winked at me as she asked; as if on cue, I heard several gunshots go over my head.

"They do." I pointed at the group of Shinra soldiers coming through the door. When I turned back around to face her, she was gone. I heard the familiar sound of the Typhoon followed by the volley of explosions thundering through the usually quiet office air.

"I think I found what we are looking for." Fyoderova pointed at a staircase. It was worth a try so I decided to follow her. After going up multiple flights of stairs, we found an assault rifle lying near the landing to the next floor.

"We are getting very close. Guns don't grow on stairs." Fyoderova commented.

"The phrase is 'don't grow on trees'." I informed her.

"I was, how you say, 'freestyling'." Fyoderova giggled; this caught me off guard since I have never even seen her smile before today. When we walked up the stairs to the next room, we saw that the door had already been kicked in; there was a giant hole in the floor just past the door frame. It was completely dark inside; the smell of a massive fire would choke the breath out of any normal man. I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye; when I turned to look, I got pulled inside the room.

"No one is here. But at the same time, we are technically behind enemy lines. When is the last time you let your sense of adventure take the wheel?" I heard Fyoderova's voice from somewhere but I couldn't see anything; she must have pulled me into one of the rooms and closed the door. I turned on my night vision and saw Fyoderova's combat gear in a pile on the floor.

"What are you waiting for? You're the only guest in this party." She asked in a flirty tone; I turned to where I heard her voice come from and saw all that there is to see of Yelena Fyoderova.

"You're crazy in the coconut. What are-" She silenced my protest by locking her lips with mine. My hands slowly slid down her back; memories of that night in London flooded into my mind. _This is far from a five-star hotel, but I feel the same as I did then._ I did not push her away this time when I felt her tongue meet mine. I felt her hand blindly grope around and open my zipper. My hands started to wander across her body as she slowly took care of my pants. She started slowly sliding down my body when I heard Cissnei's voice.

"Zack! Jensen! Anyone in here? You better come out!" Cissnei demanded. For whatever reason, Fyoderova and I thought she was talking to us, so we scrambled out of the room to meet her.

"Cissnei! What are you doing here?" I asked; I had a bad feeling about her coming to find us.

"I was looking for- Oh! Eep!" Cissnei squeaked and turned the brightest shade of red I have ever seen on a human. _I wonder what's gotten into her all of a sudden._ I thought for a few seconds until it hit me. I was standing at full attention and my pants were still in the barracks; Fyoderova wasn't wearing more than a blush and an embarrassed smile either. I dashed back inside and got dressed.

"I…" I began to say something but my words failed me.

"This never happened. We never speak of this." I awkwardly stuttered out. There was no way I could explain this; worst part was I couldn't apologize because I was not sorry at all. Even though we got interrupted this time, I would almost say it felt better than in the hotel.

"I think Zack is upstairs. The sign told us the Director's office is on the next floor." I tried to change the subject like nothing happened. I wanted to move, but I felt like I was suddenly paralyzed; no one else moved so I assumed they felt the same. We just stood there and stared at each other; an awkward silence settled into the room.

**** **Zack's POV** ****

I don't know how she did it, but she was almost every bit as good as Sephiroth with a sword. She had nowhere near the experience he had, but she had his mastery and grace. She slashed at me again; it was too late to block with my sword so I did the best I could with my free hand.

"You might have Sephiroth's skill, but you don't quite have his strength; there is no way I could block his attack like this even with my augmentations." I pointed out. I stomped the ground and jumped back; _this building must be built to withstand the apocalypse._ Aerith jumped at me again and attacked me with the sheath of her sword; without thinking I blocked it, and realized my mistake one second too late. I felt her sword pierce through me and the hilt bump into my chest.

"Overconfidence will destroy you." Aerith said in the same cold tone that Sephiroth used when he told me that.

"Danger: Guardian FX unit critically damaged. TTL: two minutes." A voice inside my head warned.

"ZACK! NO!" I heard Cissnei scream in terror when she saw me. _I hate it when Jensen is right._

"Shit! We're too late!" I heard Saxon's voice come through the door, right behind Cissnei. Aerith pulled her sword out of me and I collapsed on the ground.

"You're dead! You hear me?" Saxon growled.

"My fight is not with you. My fight is over." Aerith said calmly. I heard something light and metallic fall on the ground.

"Cissnei, Get down!" Saxon shouted. There was a blinding flash of light followed by a loud explosion; followed by a blanket of tiny needles that skewed your perception of colors.

"Damn, I can see fuck-all right now." Saxon cursed; Aerith had thrown a flash bang and an E.M.P. grenade to cover her escape.

"She's gone." Fyoderova was the first to regain sight.

"That means this isn't over yet." Saxon grumbled.

"Zack! Don't you dare leave me!" Cissnei gave me a glaring but loving look.

"I… I don't have much time left. I want you to know…that I've had a crush on you since we met. That crush turned into full-blown love after that infolink call when I first came to Sarif Industries. I'm sorry I'm only telling you this now." I wheezed out.

"Don't talk like that! We saved you once, we can save you again. Just hold on." Cissnei assured me.

"TTL: 45 seconds." The voice in my head disagreed with Cissnei. She pulled out her cell phone and called Jensen.

"Jensen, I need you to call a medic to Shinra HQ. Zack is secure but he is in critical condition." She explained the situation.

"Just hang on, Zack, everything will be alright." Cissnei said calmly.

"TTL: 30 seconds." _The voice in my head must really have it in for Cissnei; it has countered her every statement since it first popped up._

"If you weren't fucking around, maybe we could have saved him." Cissnei cursed at Saxon and Fyoderova; I had a sneaking suspicion that she meant that in the literal sense and that made me smile in amusement.

"Zack was the one that ran off ahead of us; we were just catching up." Fyoderova said in her defense.

"It wasn't Zack you were catching up on. I was even more behind than you were." Cissnei said accusingly; my suspicions were confirmed and this amused me even more.

"Arguing won't do us any good now. There is no blame to be passed around here; just a stroke of bad luck." Saxon tried to restore order and calm Cissnei down.

"I'm sure there was a-… never mind. I'm not going to say what I was going to say next." Cissnei stopped herself mid-sentence.

"Energy reserve depleted. Shutting down." the voice spoke to me one last time; everything went black a few seconds later.

**** **Cissnei's POV ******

I got Saxon to help me carry Zack to the helipad; I couldn't carry him all the way by myself.

"Why didn't you tell me you all were going here?" I asked him; I felt like they deliberately hid this from me.

"Zack wanted to hide this mission from you. Just come back when he was finished here. Feel like the hero." Saxon explained.

"We tried to stop him, we really did. He just would not let this go." Saxon added.

"I..." Fyoderova began to say something but quickly changed her mind.

"What is it?" I asked her; the speed with which she changed her mind made me suspicious.

"It's nothing." She mumbled while avoiding eye contact.

"You can tell me. I... I promise I won't get mad." I assured her; I'm a horrible person for making promises I might not be able to keep.

"You shouldn't make promises that you aren't certain you can keep." She said cryptically.

"Well, come on, I want to know." I persisted. Fyoderova sighed.

"I... I made out with Zack on the way to the helipad. It was my last attempt to try to convince him to stay." Fyoderova admitted; I wasn't sure how to take this or what to say. _I didn't get mad immediately so that's good, maybe. I really don't know what to say about this._

"how-" I began to ask but she cut me off.

"I did use tongue and I actually got him to grab my ass; but that's as far as I went." She answered my question without me asking.

"Shut up, Saxon, I already know you are coming up with a wisecrack." she added. The helicopter arrived a few minutes later; the flight back was filled with awkward silence. When we got back to Sarif HQ, Saxon helped me carry Zack to the operating room; at least to the waiting room anyway. The Chief Surgeon came out and wheeled him into the room. A few minutes later he came out of the room and sat down next to me.

"I... I'm sorry. Zack has been dead for almost forty five minutes. He was gone before we even had a chance." The Chief Surgeon sighed; this easily must be the hardest part of his job.

"If I knew it was going to turn out like this, I would have told you so that we could have stopped Zack. I have no idea how we would have, but we could have figured something out. How about I make it up to you over beer and conversation?" she offered.

"Yeah, that sounds nice." I agreed; it would a good chance to unwind and forget about everything for a while.

"I'm out of beer. Liquor ok? It technically Saxon's, but he hasn't been drinking in I don't know how long." She explained.

"Yeah, just whatever will help me forget for a while." I sighed. I must have gotten more than I bargained for with that statement because after the first glass that she brought me, I was already having trouble sitting up. Fyoderova brought me another glass but I only finished half of it before I fell over from my sitting position; I felt like I was very gently pulled to fall over onto her.

"Oh, someone is getting friendly." she teased; I blushed and tried to get up, but I couldn't make myself move more than an inch. I felt her hands gently slide down my body; my face felt like it was burning. _If I die somehow right now, I would be lying if I said I didn't die happy. I was numb to everything and there was another human being caressing me in my final moments. _She turned my head towards her and kissed me; I felt her tongue slide past my lips and blacked out.

When I woke up, I felt kind of cold. _Am I dead? I don't really feel anything._ I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of Fyoderova's apartment. _Nope, I'm still here. Why am I cold? Its summer. _The air conditioner turned on and I quickly realized I was naked.

"Good morning. You slept like typical Russian husband." Fyoderova said as she walked by to go make breakfast.

"Where are my clothes?" I asked; I felt my face get really hot.

"You decided you didn't need them last night; they are next to the foot of coffee table." She said with a smile.

"Don't worry, I didn't do anything you wouldn't enjoy" she added in a flirty tone; I've never blushed so hard in my life.

"I'm…I'm sorry…I haven't really drank liquor before." I stuttered out; my mind was filled with lewd images of Fyoderova. _What happened last night? Why do I feel so attracted to her?_

"Oh, don't worry about it. I enjoyed myself. You kept calling me Zack. Other than that, I had fun." Fyoderova giggled. I felt like I had nothing to live for now that Zack was gone; but at the same time, I felt like I had gained a new friend. _I guess I can hold off on going back to Shinra for a while. This seems fine for now._


	22. Chapter 19 Alternate Ending 2

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

_Am I using my human strength again? She is, with the exception of her Mako infusion, a completely normal human. Physically, she should not be able to block such a direct attack._ I advanced and pushed the sword forward. I heard a snapping sound followed by steel grinding against steel; my sword had pierced through her staff and was heading straight for her. Or was it? The feel of piercing through body armor and bone was noticeably absent from my attack; she had dodged the jab after it broke through her staff and vaulted over me. I redirected my jab into an upwards backslash and caught her with the end of my sword. The cut spanned almost her entire torso. She landed on her feet but collapsed immediately afterward. I ran to her to try and help her recover; this is not how I wanted our last meeting to end.

"Aerith! You have got to stop this madness! You have forced my hand far enough." I pleaded with her as I started to focus on my restorative materia.

"Poor, blind fool." She wheezed as she hit me with a massive lightning bolt. I got knocked back several feet and through the window overlooking Midgar_._ _I have to get back up there as soon as possible; she won't live long with a wound like that. _I was starting to see office floors but my Icarus system still hadn't turned on yet. _Don't tell me I'm going to die by falling out of a window. That has got to be a very anti-climactic way to go after a fight like I've been through._ Right at the end of that thought, the Icarus system kicked on; I almost lost my grip on my sword because of the sudden stop. I steered myself towards one of the windows and broke one out using my sword; when I floated through the window and touched solid ground again I ran for the staircase. _I don't want to climb all of those stairs again. I'll try the elevator again. _I thought as I ran up to the door to the staircase. I pushed the button to call the elevator; no security alarm this time. The elevator took me to the floor under the SOLDIER training room; I took the stairs the rest of the way. When I got into the SOLDIER Director's office, I saw Aerith was still in the same place she was when she blasted me with lightning. I dropped my sword and ran to her; she didn't react at all when I got close. When I checked for a pulse, my fears were confirmed; she had died by the time I got back up here. _Why didn't you let me save you? Your obsession with fighting has led you to your grave. _

"Zack! What the hell is wrong with you?! You've been fighting monsters for so long; you didn't notice how you've become one yourself!" Cissnei shouted angrily.

"She forced my hand. She kept attacking me and deliberately pushing me to attack her." I explained when I stood up and turned to face her.

"I can't believe you!" Cissnei sobbed and threw her shuriken at me; I deflected it with my hand.

"So you are going to kill me because I killed her? Violence is not going to bring anyone back; it's only going to bring more violence and sadness to everyone." I reasoned with her.

"Don't you get any closer to me. I am leaving Detroit. Don't try to follow me." Cissnei warned. She walked past me and took her shuriken out of the wall.

"I mean it. If you try to follow me, things will not end well for you." Cissnei reminded me. She walked out of the director's office and headed for the stairs; as her footsteps slowly faded, I felt like my life was fading with them.

"Why the lawn face?" I heard Fyoderova's voice in front of me.

"The phrase is 'why the long face?'. With a 'g'." Saxon corrected her.

"No. Lawn face. He has slight beard and his eyes are watering it." Fyoderova argued her point.

"You did what you had to. She would still be hunting you if you hadn't killed her." Saxon assured me.

"Cissnei walked in and saw Aerith. She called me a monster and then left. She said she was leaving Detroit and not to follow her." I mumbled.

"She just doesn't understand. It was kill or be killed and you still had lot to live for." Fyoderova joined Saxon in assuring me that I shouldn't beat myself up about what happened.

"What I had to live for has left Detroit and told me not to follow." I sighed.

"You can live for me, if you want." Fyoderova said in a flirty tone. _What was she saying? Saxon was right behind her._

"I thought you and Saxon were…" I began but trailed off.

"Oh, no. we are just close because of…past experiences. And he also got me out of really bad spot."

"Aside from a bit of _how's your father_, we aren't really connected to each other." Saxon clarified by talking in archaic slang.

"Let's go home, get cleaned up, have nice liquor, and relax by fireplace." Fyoderova offered.

"But you don't have a-" I began to say but Fyoderova interrupted me with a long kiss; the feeling of her lips on mine seemed to melt away the steel rigidity of my battle stance.

"So do you accept, or do you need more convincing?" Fyoderova asked.

"Yeah, we can go. There is nothing else I can do here." I sighed. I picked up my sword and started walking up the stairs to the helipad. A few minutes after I got up there, I saw the familiar lights and markings of Malik's helicopter.

"Please don't tell me you lost someone on this mission." Malik sounded worried.

"I did lose someone, but they are very much alive. Cissnei told me she was leaving Detroit and that I should not follow her." I mumbled.

"I don't really want to talk about it." I added to avoid further questions; I honestly didn't want to talk about it. When Saxon and Fyoderova got in the helicopter, Fyoderova sat really close to me and put her arm around me.

"Everything is going to be fine eventually. Time heals all wounds." Fyoderova assured me.

"Well, that and vodka." she added jokingly.

"Aren't you a little too close to Fyoderova when you're trying to court Cissnei?" Jensen said with a smirk when he showed up and climbed into his seat.

"Cissnei is gone. Forever. She left Detroit and said she's not coming back. She told me not to follow her." I sighed.

"See? I told you she would not be happy." Jensen reminded me of his earlier words.

"She saw that I killed Aerith. She called me a monster and left." I mumbled.

"You didn't kill her for personal gain. She hunted you like a dog; when she cornered you, you reacted with your survival instincts." Jensen explained to me; he hoped I would not guilt myself over it if I looked at it rationally. The rest of the flight home was quiet, but it was kind of a soothing quiet; Fyoderova fell asleep on my shoulder.

Sarif was already waiting for us at the helipad. I was the last to get out but the first person he talked to.

"Zack, how are you? How did it go?" he asked in a slightly excited tone.

"I killed one of Shinra's top assassins, and then Cissnei walked in on it and called me a monster. She said she was leaving Detroit and that I shouldn't follow her. I think I'm done with my vengeance against Shinra. It only brings bloodshed and despair." I gave him the main points.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you run along and get some rest. You can tell me the rest later if you feel up to it." Sarif suggested. Fyoderova walked back to the helicopter with me and got in.

"I have old Tyrants uniform you can borrow. Better than current clothes that look like _geh na lapate." _Fyoderova offered when we got to her apartment. She went to pour us some drinks and I went to take a shower. _I was so caught up in my vengeance against Shinra; I did not realize that I had essentially become what I hated. I relentlessly attacked multiple Shinra facilities. Shinra relentlessly hunted for me. It was a vicious cycle; Aerith had to die to break it. I will try to just live a normal life now. I can go back to forgetting my augmented strength and just live like I did before this whole mess. Before Nibelheim._ When I got out of the shower, the uniform Fyoderova talked about was already on the sink; when was she in here? The uniform wasn't there when I came in. I put it on and walked out to the living room.

"Come sit down. I have our drinks." Fyoderova was in basketball shorts and a t-shirt; I have never seen her without her usual combat outfit before. I sat down on the couch and knocked back half of the glass at once.

"That was supposed to be romantic drink for two. You drink like Russian husband." Fyoderova explained.

"I can slow the other half drinkly." I offered.

"You never drink before, I take it?" Fyoderova asked; I did not realize what I said until I thought about it again.

"Not really. I didn't drink on the job, and the one vacation I had where I could have was interrupted by sea divers with guns." I remembered my vacation at Casa del Sol and Cissnei's suspiciously timed parallel vacation. _Cissnei... I never meant to kill Aerith. I tried to help her but she pushed me away; and you didn't listen. _I took another drink from my glass; I barely managed to put it back on the table.

"I think someone is drunk and thinking about people they shouldn't be." Fyoderova said in a sly tone and gently pulled me towards her as she lay down on the couch. She turned her head towards me and pulled me a little closer; I felt a wave of warmth wash over me when my lips met hers. I felt her tongue sneakily slip past my lips; my face felt like it was on fire. She took my hand and slowly slid it down her body. I slid my hand into her shirt and back up her body; it actually felt like a regular human body. I don't know why I was expecting something different.

"Oh, liquor must have taken hold because you are brave enough to explore now." she winked at me. I slid my hand into her shorts and she let out a breathy moan.

"Let's get you into something more...comfortable...for me..." she suggested. I got up and was about to take off the top part of the uniform when my vision rapidly blacked out.

I woke up on a really soft mattress under a bed sheet. _There is no way this is a couch. She must have moved me after I blacked out._ I turned over to see Fyoderova next to me under the same bed sheet; sans t-shirt and shorts.

"What happened?" I mumbled; I was not ready for actual talking.

"You drank like Russian husband and then you fell over like American bachelor. I carried you to my bed so you wouldn't sleep on floor." Fyoderova explained with a smile.

"I think I'm just going to live a normal life from now on. I will try to forget that I'm augmented and just live like I'm human. My conquest for vengeance has only brought violence, suffering, and death." I decided.

"One does not simply forget they are augmented with multi-million dollar military technology." Fyoderova disagreed with my plan.

"If no one outside the company knows I've got it, it is easily forgotten." I pointed out. I was done living the self-serving mercenary life. I would be perfectly content with a regular job somewhere. Now that Shinra was out of my hair, I was finally free to live my life.


	23. Chapter 19

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

Whether I wanted to or not was irrelevant. I _had to _end it. I knew I would not be able to fight her a third time.

"Finish her!" a familiar voice called. I advanced and pushed my sword forward; it pierced through the staff and its wielder. I felt Aerith fall on my shoulder.

"A warrior's... Death." she wheezed out her final words; the two pieces of the staff fell out of her hands.

"Why didn't you DOOODGE?!" I yelled; to show such finesse and grace only to lose the fight like this was almost insulting.

"Brutal. I didn't expect that you would actually do it." Fyoderova said in a slightly shocked tone.

I pulled my sword out of Aerith and she collapsed onto the floor.

"I never asked for this; but I also had no choice." I said resentfully.

"No one ever does." Fyoderova sighed.

"Jensen, target has been terminated. We are ready for exfil." Fyoderova announced via infolink.

"She was Shinra assassin hired to kill you. Why are you sad?" she asked me; she thought it was odd that I would regret killing someone who tried to kill me.

"She was so happy and cheerful when I first met her. I really started to like her; then I got sent to Nibelheim. That is where everything started to fall apart." I explained the short of it.

"What happened?" Fyoderova seemed puzzled.

"The Shinra hero Sephiroth was sent to accompany me to the Mako reactor there. He saw some of the monsters in the pods and went full sociopath." I hit the main points.

"Well, you're still here." She pointed out.

"I ended up following him into the core of the reactor; after a fight to near-death, I finally defeated him. Sort of. Cloud ended up delivering the final blow." I recalled as the memories from that day came over my mind like the smell of a wet dog that walks into a small room.

"This is his sword, actually. I found it in one of the Shinra labs I was taken to." I added.

"I've overheard a few whispers about Sephiroth from Cissnei and the others. If you beat _him_ in single combat…" Fyoderova trailed off and ended with a sharp groan. Before I had time to react or even realize what was going on, I was in her embrace and her lips were locked with mine. I wanted to move, but I was taken by such surprise that my body wasn't listening. I felt her tongue slide past my lips; as if on cue, Malik popped into my infolink.

"Mr. Fair, your limo has arrived." Malik announced; I wasn't sure what had gotten into Fyoderova, but I knew I didn't want to find out in the middle of Shinra HQ.

"Our ride is here; right when things got interesting." Fyoderova said in a flirty voice. We walked to the helipad and climbed in; we kept catching each other looking at each other the whole flight home. When we landed at Sarif HQ, I had only taken a few steps after getting out of the helicopter when I heard something quietly whispering through the air. I slashed diagonally upward and caught Cissnei's shuriken with my sword; it cut through the shuriken as if it was made of wax.

"Where have you been? I have been worried sick." She demanded.

"I went to Shinra to finally take care of business." I decided to be straight with her, but not give too much detail.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Cissnei demanded.

"No, I've got enough people trying to kill me without you." I answered sarcastically.

"Did you not tell me you were going to Shinra so you could run away with Fyoderova?" Cissnei asked accusingly. Fyoderova blushed at the question.

"She sure looks happy, walking out of the helicopter. I know the helicopter wasn't _that_ fun on its own." Cissnei accusingly insinuated that Fyoderova and I had relations on the helicopter; we most certainly did not. It was in the SOLDIER director's office.

"No. I didn't tell you because you were going to try to convince me to stay. I didn't want to hide from Shinra anymore so I took the fight to them. Their top assassin is dead now, so I can finally stop living in secret." I explained.

"I would have gone with you. It was dangerous to go alone." Cissnei said.

"I had to go alone. He was almost every bit as good with a sword as Sephiroth. Would you have been able to help me fight Sephiroth?" I asked. Cissnei looked down at the ground.

"Who was it?" She asked; The Turks dealt a lot with some of Shinra's "independent contractors" so she probably thought she knew "him".

"I don't know, he had a mask on." I lied; she knew Aerith and I just could not tell her she was an assassin now and that I had killed her.

"Looks like you've still got some blood on your sword." Cissnei's eyes flicked to look at my sword. Without even consciously thinking about it, fire streaked down my sword and disappeared a couple seconds later; _Evidence of the Company's misconduct must be erased._ Tseng's voice floated through my mind. Thankfully, Cissnei either didn't notice or didn't think much of it.

"I am going to take a shower and have a beer. This has been a hell of a day." I said and headed off to my apartment; technically Cissnei's apartment and she was just letting me live there. Mine was graciously destroyed by Shinra.

"Between you and me, how did you handle your second meeting with her?" Jensen asked me when I walked by his office; I got slightly lost walking to the entrance of the building.

"It was hard. I almost lost actually. Then I remembered I was augmented and…." I paused and sighed.

"And what?" Jensen encouraged me to continue. I sighed.

"I killed her. I'm going home." I said resentfully and walked towards the stairs. It took me longer to get to my apartment on foot than it would have if I had taken the helicopter, but I needed the walk. It was a sight for sore eyes to see home again. I got into the shower and thought I was going to melt; clean, warm water on my skin after a day like this was borderline sensory overload. I closed my eyes and just stood under the water for a few minutes. My relaxation was interrupted when I heard the rings of the shower curtain slide back. Cissnei had forgotten that I said I was taking a shower and was about to get in when she saw me; the thought of her naked body hadn't even crossed my mind before because of work so this spectacle had the same effect as Aerith's stop spell at the end of our first encounter. We just stood there, motionless, staring at each other. Cissnei's face started to turn red; I wasn't _fully _paralyzed. _All these augmentations and I can't move at all._ We spent several more minutes as nude statues before she finally spoke.

"You….You were here first. I-I'll come back when you're done." Cissnei stammered out; her face was the same color as a summon materia. She awkwardly walked out of the room and disappeared behind the door frame. I regained control of my body again and finished my shower. I walked to Cissnei's room to get dressed; I found her sitting on the bed, staring at the wall. I sat down next to her.

"Shower is open." I said; there was no reaction. I got up and went to the closet to get dressed; I was starting to get cold in just a towel.

"Aren't you getting cold?" I asked; still no answer. _I have a terrible idea; it might just be crazy enough to work._

"Fyoderova is coming over in a few minutes and we are going to make out on the couch to celebrate a mission well done." I made up the first thing I could think of that would bring a swift reaction; _I'm talking to statues now apparently. Zack Fair, Statue Whisperer. 'My statue keeps staring at me? Is it trying to tell me something?' Yeah 'I am so stoned right now'. _I amused myself while I waited for a reply. After a few more minutes of silence, I not only went out on a limb; I decided to jump off of it. I gently pushed on her shoulder and she fell back on the bed. I lay down next to her and kissed her on the lips. After receiving no reaction, I slowly slid my tongue into her mouth. Her own was so soft I lost myself in the moment. _What the fuck am I doing? _A jolting thought yanked me back to reality. _How is she still non responsive?_ I noticed her blush starting to come back so I decided to back off. _Maybe she will talk now._ A few minutes went by and her blush faded. I covered her with the free side of the blanket and lay down next to her. A few minutes later, I drifted off to sleep.


	24. Chapter 20

Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.

"Why am I naked? What happened yesterday?" Cissnei woke me up.

"You walked in on me in the shower, we saw each other nude, and then you fell asleep sitting up on the bed." I recapped last night's events.

"We…" she started to say but trailed off; her face was starting to turn red again.

"Cissnei, by now it should be no secret that I love you. There just hasn't really been a time for me to tell you before now." I admitted. Cissnei's blush accelerated until she was a bright red.

"You don't have anything to be embarrassed or nervous about. I love you inside and out." I assured her.

"I'm supposed to be professional and you already..." Cissnei trailed off again.

"You're human. You got overwhelmed by emotion and it just happened." I assured her. She really shouldn't blame herself for what happened last night.

"I've had some feelings for you too... You could probably tell..." Cissnei mumbled timidly.

"I could. Even as far back as that abandoned beach." I smiled and kissed her slowly.

**** **Aerith's POV** ****

I woke up on a beautiful grass field. _It looks so peaceful here; away from all the chaos of Shinra. _I got up to look around; maybe there were other people here that could tell me what exactly this place was.

"It is not your time. Return from whence you came!" a voice like rumbling thunder called. I started looking around for where the voice was coming from and everything went black.

"She is breathing again. Wait a few minutes before moving her to the helicopter." I heard an unfamiliar voice; I opened my eyes and saw someone with the standard Turks uniform but red hair. _Did Tseng dye his hair red? Or is that someone else?_ From the back, Tseng and this mystery person looked almost identical; I was waiting for him to turn around.

"Alright, someone help me get her onto the helicopter." The mystery man said and started walking towards me; it was not Tseng.

"Who are you?" I asked; he looked familiar but I just couldn't match a name to him.

"Reno. You would think you would remember me and Cissnei from the rest of the suits. We are basically the only ones that show we are still human under those black suits and earpieces." Reno seemed slightly annoyed; I didn't blame him though, I should have remembered who he was. He was the one that was actually carrying my letters to Zack. _I'd rather not think about Zack right now. One disaster at a time, Aerith. _

"Why did you save me? How did you save me?" I asked; I was beginning to think this was all just a highly realistic dream.

"All I saw was Tseng pouring out what looked a perfume bottle on you, and then you started moving." Reno shrugged.

"As for why; you will have to ask them. I'm just the pilot." Reno added. _This is going to be all kinds of "fun", I'm sure. They are all just waiting for me with open arms. _I mentally grumbled as they flew me to wherever it was we were going.

"Get her into Recovery, and keep a close eye. Whatever Tseng did looks like it was just a band aid fix." Reno told one of the medics when we landed. As I was being wheeled to "Recovery", I noticed the halls looked quite similar to some of those at Shinra HQ. After a few minutes and multiple turns, they slowed to a crawl; I saw a door frame creep into view. They wheeled me up next to a bed and carefully moved me onto it.

"There is a call button on the side. Use it if you need anything." one of the medics informed me before they left. Silence settled into the room; silence with the exception of the heart monitor. _I should be fine as long as no one that I know comes in. _I did not leave on the best of terms with them.

"That is pretty hardcore. You took almost the entire sword to the chest, and you're still breathing." a voice came from the door. It belonged to woman in what looked vaguely like a 1st class SOLDIER uniform.

"I am Yelena Fyoderova. I was one of the people chosen by Zack to come with him when he attacked Shinra." she introduced herself.

"Don't worry; I'm not here to kill you. I just felt bad because I felt like I encouraged him, in a way." She added.

"We were on opposing sides at the time. I already told him that only one of us was leaving that room. Who it was going to be, I never specified." I sighed.

"Well, I will leave you to rest. Not everyone that gets stabbed like that lives to tell about it." Fyoderova said as she turned towards the door to leave.

**** **A week later ******

I was walking to the entrance of the LIMB clinic when a tall man in a trench coat and sunglasses started talking to me as I walked by him.

"I heard you were brought in by Reno. You must mean something to one of them since they actually went back to Shinra HQ to get you." he said.

"I'm not entirely sure why I'm here either." I shrugged.

"I'm Sarif's chief of security; Adam Jensen." he introduced himself.

"So where do I go now? Who do I go to?" I asked; I originally thought that my fight with Zack would take care of all these questions one way or another.

"That's not for me to tell you." Jensen said slightly dismissively.

"Do you mind if I stay with you, then? You've been the only neutral party in this whole mess."

"How do you know anything about my involvement in 'this whole mess'?" Jensen asked me with a look on his face that accused me of espionage.

"I didn't see you on any surveillance videos." I wanted to keep clear of any misunderstandings so that I didn't get into another fight; I was out of the hospital for barely a week and did not want to go back.

"I'll think about it." Jensen no longer had the accusing look, but he was not exactly inviting me with open arms.

"I don't have any way to defend myself right now; and the streets outside are not exactly full of unicorns and good Samaritans." I tried to reason with him. Jensen sighed.

"I guess. I can't just leave you out on the street. But don't get too comfortable; this is not going to be permanent." Jensen finally caved.

"Tseng asked me to stick around to make sure you were alright; now that you're up and walking around, I'm going home." Jensen mumbled and headed for the entrance.

"How do you live in a place like this?" I asked him when I saw the neighborhood his apartments were in.

"They know enough of who I am; they don't bother me." Jensen said without turning around. When he opened the door to his apartment, I thought he was walking into a liquor store. I opened my mouth to ask him if we were at the right place, but he cut me off.

"Yes, I drink. I'm surprised you don't after what you've been through." Jensen grumbled as he took a bottle out of the refrigerator and took a drink.

"You mind pouring me one too?" I asked him; I decided a small drink wouldn't hurt.

"You sure you should be drinking? You only got out of the hospital a week ago." Jensen sounded strangely concerned; kind of an odd turn for someone who at first didn't even want to associate with me past the casual past in the hall.

"I was stabbed by 5 feet of a 6 foot sword and I'm still breathing. I don't think a small drink is going to do anything bad." I reminded him.

"Alright. It's your funeral. Again." Jensen shrugged and poured me a glass. We both sat on the couch with our drinks. We just sat in silence; Jensen staring off into space. I had finished my drink and went to get up to pour myself another one; my vision temporarily blacked out when I stood up. I lost my balance and fell over on Jensen; it almost felt like he caught me when I fell. _Was he waiting for me?_

"I don't think you understand the concept of 'small drink'." Jensen commented.

"Quiet, you." I mumbled and kissed him deeply. _What am I doing? I've clearly drank too much. I was not ready for this._ I suddenly came back to reality and broke off the kiss.

"I…I'm sorry…" I stammered out as I felt my face getting hot; my vision was slowly darkening as my face got hotter. It wasn't long before I fell asleep; on top of Jensen.

****** Zack's POV ******

"All of the attacks on Shinra, the main attack on Shinra HQ, it was all a necessary part of securing the ability to follow Angeal's words." I explained the core reason for my vengeance against Shinra.

"What did he say? He seemed peaceful to me. I don't know how something he said would send you on a crusade like this." Cissnei asked.

"Embrace your dreams." I said and hugged her tightly.

"Zack….uh… I…" Cissnei was at a loss for words.

"My dream is to make a life with you." I said quietly.

"I've wanted to tell you the same thing for a while too, but I didn't know how you felt about it. I know now and I couldn't be happier." Cissnei admitted. I could finally start a good life; the life I dreamed of after finding out Shinra was a den of monsters. I don't think I could have found a better person to start it with.


End file.
